By Aaron Barker, Daniela Sternitzky-Di Napoli and Mario Diaz
Click2Houston
September 10, 2020
HOUSTON – Four Houston police officers have
been fired in connection with the fatal officer-involved shooting of
Nicolas Chavez nearly four months ago.
Chavez was shot and killed April 21.
Police said they believed the 27-year-old had a “pointed object” and
charged at officers. A cellphone video recorded by a witness appeared to
show Chavez on his knees when he was shot by officers.
Houston
police Chief Art Acevedo said Thursday that an autopsy showed that
Chavez suffered a total of 29 entry or exit wounds, which included
wounds from bullet fragments. He said Chavez also had methamphetamine
and ethanol in his system.
Protesters and some of
Chavez’s family members have said he was suffering a mental health
crisis when he was shot by the officers. For months, they have called on
the Houston Police Department to release the body-worn camera video. Thursday, police released that video while announcing that firing of four officers involved in the shooting.
Bodycam video
Houston police Chief Art
Acevedo said officers encountered Chavez after several 911 calls about a
man darting into traffic were received.
The video, which
included different angles from officers who fired shots, showed
officers confronting a clearly distraught Chavez. The officers spent
several minutes trying to calm Chavez down and urged him to comply with
their commands. Officers later use bean-bag rounds and a Taser to try to
subdue Chavez, before fire shots at him. Chavez becomes covered in
blood during the encounter and is shot three times by officers. He later
grabs the wires of a deployed Taser and begins to pull it toward him
before the fatal 21 shots were fired.
Acevedo on force
Acevedo said that while he
believes most of the actions by the officers were reasonable and
justified, he said he cannot defend the 21 shots that were fired at the
end of the confrontation with Chavez. He said he believes Chavez no
longer posed a threat to officers because he was too weak to stand.
Acevedo said that the four officers who were fired have already filed appeals and that he plans to fight them.
In
May, Acevedo confirmed to KPRC 2 Investigates that the Feds were
looking into the case in addition to the investigation being conducted
by the Harris County District Attorney’s office.
Houston police Chief Art Acevedo was joined earlier this month
by Chavez’s widow and family members of other people killed in those
shootings who said they understood why Acevedo was reluctant to release
the videos. Thursday, Acevedo thanked the community for their patience
and giving the time he needed to investigate the incident.
Police union responds to firings
The Houston Police Officer’s Union held a news conference to discuss the firing, calling the decision made by Houston Police Cheif Art Acevedo “unjust and deplorable."
According to HPOU president Joe Grimaldi, Chavez’s death was tragic but the shooting was justified.
“What
happened to Nicolas Chavez was a tragedy,” Grimaldi said. “(He was) a
man who was clearly struggling from mental illness or a possible
overdose and as a result forced our officers into a suicide-by-cop
scenario.”
Grimaldi said the officers who responded to
the scene did everything people across the country have been asking
police to do, including doing everything they could to deescalate and
retreat for 15 minutes before the shooting.
HPOU vice president, Doug Griffith — who was called to the scene following the shooting — echoed this sentiment.
According
to Griffith, the officers involved were young officers and had not been
on the force long. They were distraught at having to shoot a civilian,
and even Acevedo agree they followed protocol and it was “obviously
suicide by cop,” Griffith said.
Griffith believed Acevedo’s tune changed due to political presser that “obviously he can’t handle.”
Several
committees and civilians on those committees agreed that the officers
acted under the law and did not require disciplinary action, but the
chief still decided to fire the officers involved, Griffith said.
“We’ve got hard-working officers out there doing their job and this just breaks the morale of this department,” Griffith said.
Acevedo is expected to respond to the HPOU’s comments during a news conference Thursday afternoon.
1 comment:
The hiring authority should be immune to mundane political pressure. And I should be rich as well as good looking. Sometimes the world is not as it should be.
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