A police interview given by the suspected gunman in the deadly 2017 La Placita robbery has become a point of contention among attorneys involved in the criminal case.

Jonny Alexander Reyes-Martinez, 30, of Nashville, is charged with murder through use of a firearm during a crime of violence, conspiracy to interfere with commerce by robbery, conspiracy to possess a firearm during a crime of violence and illegal possession of a firearm.

The charges stem from the March 17, 2017, robbery of La Placita market on Morgantown Road, in which Jose Cruz, 31, of Bowling Green, was shot and killed while reportedly attempting to intervene in the incident.

Reyes-Martinez and four other people have been charged with various crimes in connection with the robbery, and one person has pleaded guilty and awaits sentencing.

The five people accused are part of an overall group of 13 people based in Nashville who have been charged with conspiring to take part in armed robberies at several Hispanic-owned businesses in multiple states.

Reyes-Martinez’s former attorney, federal public defender Scott Wendelsdorf, filed a motion in February to suppress his statement to police – given Sept. 27, 2017, at Leavenworth Detention Center in Kansas – on the grounds that he was not advised of his rights until about six minutes into the nearly four-hour interview, by which time he had already made incriminating statements.

Wendelsdorf also argued that Reyes-Martinez invoked his right to an attorney during the interview, but police continued their questioning, eliciting more incriminating statements.

The interview was conducted with the help of a Spanish-language interpreter, with Bowling Green Police Department Detective Mike Nade doing most of the questioning.

Attorney James Earhart has been appointed to represent Reyes-Martinez in place of Wendelsdorf, who was removed from the case in February after a hearing conducted at the request of Reyes-Martinez.

In a response filed Tuesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Marisa Ford argued that law enforcement introduced themselves to Reyes-Martinez and asked him some basic identifying questions like his address, employment and his length of residency in the U.S. before advising him of his rights, which were read to him by the interpreter.

After agreeing to talk to officers, Reyes-Martinez spoke about his participation in multiple armed robberies, including the one at La Placita, until investigators asked if anyone had gotten hurt in any of the robberies.

“I would need to talk to a lawyer about that first,” Reyes-Martinez said during the interview.

Nade asks Reyes-Martinez whether he would like to continue speaking with police, saying that he wants to hear Reyes-Martinez’s account, and when Reyes-Martinez asks what would happen if he were to ask for an attorney, Nade responds that police would allow the attorney to speak with Reyes-Martinez.

The detective then says he would like to show Reyes-Martinez some pictures of people for him to identify. Reyes-Martinez appears to say that he does not want to continue talking without an attorney, but is willing to look at the pictures and share any knowledge, court records show.

After going through the photographs, Nade asks Reyes-Martinez whether he wishes to continue speaking to police without an attorney present, and Reyes-Martinez agrees to do so, saying that if he is asked a question he would prefer not to answer, he would not answer it.

“(Reyes-Martinez’s) mention of an attorney well into the interview was ambiguous, and in response to a single question, not the interrogation as a whole,” Ford said in her response to the suppression motion. “The defendant specifically declined to answer several questions during the interview, including one that generated his comment that he would have to talk with a lawyer before he answered the question.”

Ford argued that Reyes-Martinez’s responses indicated he understood his rights, could choose which questions he wanted to answer and knew he did not have to answer any questions.

Later in the interview, Reyes-Martinez goes into detail about the La Placita robbery, telling police he did not intend to hurt anyone.

“The person that went in came at us and we struggled, fighting there, and yes, a shot released from the gun. … I honestly got scared when he started to fight with me,” Reyes-Martinez said in the interview about Cruz’s intervention.

Reyes-Martinez later told police he remembered the sound of the gunshot while struggling with Cruz and ran from the store without knowing what happened to Cruz.

“It was never my intention to hurt him,” Reyes-Martinez told police. “I know that asking for forgiveness does not remedy anything … in that moment I was not thinking about what I was doing.”

Federal court records detail an alleged conspiracy in which Reyes-Martinez participated in the robberies to obtain money to repay a debt to Jorge Caballero-Melgar, who spent money to get Reyes-Martinez into the U.S. from Honduras.

Caballero-Melgar reportedly provided weapons and a vehicle to the people who committed the robberies, court records show.

Caballero-Melgar has been charged with multiple offenses in the La Placita case and has pleaded not guilty.

Ford in her response also countered Wendelsdorf’s argument that Reyes-Martinez’s arrest in Kansas in 2017 was unlawful.

Wendelsdorf argued that Reyes-Martinez believed he was free to leave after being warned by a Kansas Highway Patrol officer about his car’s cracked windshield.

The officer then asked for consent to search the vehicle, and after being given consent found a handgun and several rounds of ammunition, leading to Reyes-Martinez’s arrest.

Wendelsdorf argues that the vehicle search unlawfully prolonged a traffic stop that Reyes-Martinez believed was complete.

Ford contends that the patrol officer had reasonable suspicion to ask for a search of the vehicle based on the nervous behavior Reyes-Martinez and a passenger exhibited, the fact that the car was registered in the name of someone not occupying the vehicle, the fact that one of the occupants had a prior criminal history, and the fact that the car was on a “known drug-trafficking route” on its way to Denver, described in court records as a “known drug source city.”

This story has been updated since its initial publication to correct the attribution of the quote “It was never my intention to hurt him. I know that asking for forgiveness does not remedy anything … in that moment I was not thinking about what I was doing” to Jonny Alexander Reyes-Martinez.