Men shot and killed by off-duty Omaha officers in February involved in narcotics trafficking [Video]

Two men killed by off-duty Omaha police officers earlier this year were directly connected to narcotics trafficking, police said in a press release issued Tuesday.

The press release came ahead of the release of a grand jury’s findings about the killings.

Police declined to offer specifics, citing an ongoing joint federal investigation into “illicit narcotics activities” but said $23,333 in cash and “distribution quantities” of cocaine were found in a hidden compartment of the car in which Jonathan Hernandez-Rosales, 28, and Fernando Rodriguez-Juarez, 26, were shot and killed in February.

Two off-duty officers working security at Extasis Nightclub on the morning of Feb. 3 opened fire on a car containing the two men after Rodriguez-Juarez fired a shot in the direction of a group of people, police said in the days after the shooting. The officers were not aware of the men’s alleged connections to the drug trade at the …