SATX officer fired for shooting teen

[toddnjoyce]

How the hell is he still employed? SAPD must have one hell of a union.

He isn’t any longer. The article below kind of wraps up the big incidents and his resignation last fall

San Antonio police officer with long history of road rage incidents resigns

A San Antonio police officer with a documented history of road rage has resigned months after being charged in a drunk driving hit-and-run case, department officials confirmed Friday.

www.ksat.com

 

[rotor]

The question I ask is what would happen to you or me if we were shooting at a car as it was driving away with at least 2 people in it and our lives were not in danger?

 

[toddnjoyce]

Let’s look at more of SAPD’s finest. This guy was in my new hire class with my current employer. Was on the SAPD books as a Capt for more than six months while working full time for my employer.

He’s been promoted by my company a couple times since. Runs the union investment portfolios still, too.

SAPD captain fired for being 'retired on duty' gets reduced discipline but no back pay

A San Antonio police captain who was fired 97 days before his planned retirement for working a second full-time job instead of his police assignment had his discipline reduced, records obtained by The Defenders show.

www.ksat.com

 

[cycleguy2300]

*Presumably* if an armed but unknown person jerks open my car door any reasonable person would believe they intend me serious bodily injury or death and so I'm justified in using any level of force to extricate myself from the situation.

I think "Part 1" will be a bigger problem than you seem to think.

Generally, the person who unjustifiably initiates the use of force or menacing behavior is the bad guy, right?

Courts do not consider the tactics (opening a door) so long as they are lawful (which it was).

For example : Austin some years back on a traffic stop reach into a car to put the car into park because the driver was refusing to put the car in park or get out or something. Well, driver decided he had places to go and gassed it. The officer got tangled and drug. The officer was able to get to his gun and shot and killed the driver. The officer was No-billed because while the the tactics of reaching into a vehicle may be poor they are lawful. It was the unlawful attempt to evade by the driver in both this and the San Antonio case that create the immediate need to use deadly force.

In my one viewing of the San Antonio video, the driver may have been surprised by his door opening, but *I assume* the officer was wearing a uniform which the driver seemed to recognize by his "why?" when directed to get out. He then takes a moment to evaluate his options, shifts into reverse and here we are.

Again assuming the officer was justified in detaining the vehicle, going up to car door and opening it is legal if the officer can articulate a reason better than "just because" Courts have not required an announcement for vehicles, they have a much lower expectation of privacy than a home. The ability of a vehicle to immediately flee has been held by courts to create a default exigency.

Now, had the officer used different tactics this situation may (or may not) have been avoided.

Me seeing a stolen or car that had just evaded, I'm going to:
Call additional resources -officers, -k9 ‐helicopter then I will wait until those resources arrive or the suspects actions push me to engage. At some point the officer must engage the subject or suspect and place themselves in a position where the suspects actions may require the use of force or deadly force. That is the nature of the job.

Having watched the video only once, was there room for the car to have pulled forward immediately or did they possibly go into reverse with intent to strike the officer?

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[majormadmax]

I think the people who fired him damn near immediately know a bit more about the totality of the circumstances than anyone at TGT.

This is the SAPD we're talking about here...

 

[cycleguy2300]

Ok… on a legal stand point. I get it. He didn’t do anything illegal.

But dang man, his horrible tactics overshadowed any legal standpoint.

How would you have processed that situation?

Each situation is unique but having ran enough scenarios and having been in like situations as I replied to Ben:

-call for additional officers, k9 and a helo
-wait, observe and coordinate until pushed into engagement by a change in the situation or my resources are in place.
-deploy tire deflation devices at likely exits
-*assuming* the suspects are still just sitting there, pop on lights, get on the PA and give instructions and go with a run of the mill high risk stop.

I've literally followed a stolen car around for 15 minutes before as we just drove around town before all the units I wanted got in to place. He ran when we turned on lights, but I have a helicopter above us and officers a few hundred yards away with tire deflation devices and the stolen car didnt get anywhere. Had he spooked when he saw a marked police car behind him I'd have turned on lights and chased, but there was no pressing need for me to initiate contact if I had time to hold.

Push vs the hold

What is pushing me to act vs the advantage of holding (or moving slower) and creating a position of strength and awareness.

I saw the suspect pause and delay as he evaluated the situation. He realized it was one officer, on foot and that he had a good chance of driving away. Had the officer had time to get even one other car and set up a wedge behind even if the car had reversed *maybe* the use of deadly force would not have happened. All of us should use time to our advantage. They officer here gave time and space up, which, while not illegal or de-justifying the shoot, can get you really hurt.

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[cycleguy2300]

True.

That cop created that bad situation. He created a “justifiable” bad shoot.

That’s what pisses me off here.

Its why Austin is going to be in a world of hurt if they don't come back with a really good contract. Officers who can leave for a better environment will leave, meaning the overworked officers are more tired which hampers judgment. Couple that with lower quality cadets with a lot of "feel good words solve everything" training won't have those senior guys to teach them how to slow things down on the street. The BLM/Defund movement has put Austin a decade behind at the very least. We are 500 officers short of our 2017 staffing authorization and losing officers at a record pace and unable to hire anywhere near enough to make a difference.

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[Mowingmaniac 24/7]

I read all the posts in this thread and didn't see one (maybe I missed it) of the status of the teen.

Like: Was he hit? If so, how many times and where...arm, leg, torso...all three?

Anyone know his status?

 

[toddnjoyce]

Courts do not consider the tactics (opening a door) so long as they are lawful (which it was)….

Don’t take this the wrong way, but there’s a lot of bad but legal tactical employment by LEOs. That doesn’t make it right. When you’re using extraordinary powers (the power to detain, for example), it has to be squeaky clean every single time, especially since the LEO has the authority to use deadly force. That’s what the public, who’s your ultimate employer, expects, not the law.

The public does not want LEOs to be a fast lane to the executioner’s table over a bad ID followed by dumb tactics on the LEOs part. Reasonable suspicion may not always be as simple as make/model/color vehicle when there’s 14 million cars sold new in the US annually.

Unfortunately, the public well has been poisoned and the battle LEOs have to win now is for the faith the average person has in them. It doesn’t help when union mouthpieces shoots their mouth off before facts can be gathered (looking at you Joe Gamaldi, as well as every PD union that spoke to the Senate on HB1927).

 

[toddnjoyce]

I read all the posts in this thread and didn't see one (maybe I missed it) of the status of the teen.

Like: Was he hit? If so, how many times and where...arm, leg, torso...all three?

Anyone know his status?

Hit the kid bad enough to have to do CPR while waiting on EMS.

SAPD fires officer who shot teen outside McDonald’s restaurant, releases video of incident

The San Antonio Police Department on Wednesday fired a police officer who shot a teenager outside a McDonald’s restaurant less than a week ago.

www.ksat.com

Still in the hospital.

Bexar Co. DA drops charges against teen shot by now-former SAPD officer

District Attorney Joe Gonzales said he was exercising "compassionate discretion" because the teen is in critical condition in the hospital.

www.kens5.com

 

[benenglish]

In my one viewing of the San Antonio video, the driver may have been surprised by his door opening, but *I assume* the officer was wearing a uniform...

To me, that's meaningless.

There's a spur leading to downtown Houston when you're headed north on I-59/69. It's easy to come off that highway really hot and substantially exceed the speed limit for a couple of blocks on surface streets before you realize you're going way too fast.

HPD used to run (maybe still does; I dunno) a speed trap at that location. They'd fill the parking lot behind a restaurant, not visible to the oncoming traffic, with units to process paperwork, etc. Then they'd have one guy on a radar gun using the corner of the building as cover.

I didn't know any of the above the first time I passed that speed trap. I was doing the legal limit but the guy in the lane to my left was substantially exceeding.

HPD "pulled him over" by having one officer walk out into the middle of the traffic lane with the speeder and hold up an ~10-inch replica of a stop sign in the middle of his chest.

The first time I passed that trap, what I saw was one guy dressed in a very badly-fitting blue uniform of some sort standing in the middle of the street trying to stop cars. Obviously, this was a mentally ill person who had bought a used security officer uniform at Goodwill or someone trying to carjack people using the same second hand clothes and a crude, handmade sign. No firearm was visible and I think I would have noticed that. In fact, there was no gear at all on his belt. There certainly were no reds and blues visible anywhere.

Yep, it was obvious this was not a cop but one of the most brazen crooks or stupid mentally ill people I'd ever seen.

In the two seconds it took for me to reach his position, I went over in my mind whether I'd be able to swerve around him or if I should just drive straight over him. I had just enough time to move one lane to my right to get away from the crazy person...then I drove past him and saw the whole production set up out of sight in the empty parking lot.

A uniform means less than nothing to me. If someone is a cop, the totality of the circumstances will tell me that. If someone armed yanks open my door as their first action, my perfectly reasonable response is to vacate the area asap, paying basically zero attention to whether they are injured by my vehicle in the process.

... the driver seemed to recognize by his "why?" when directed to get out. He then takes a moment to evaluate his options, shifts into reverse and here we are.

And that may save this cop from the consequences of "Part 1." It may not. It can easily be argued that the driver was momentarily confused about how best to get away from the crazy man/carjacker and there was a delay in him taking action.

I'm reminded of the old Barney Miller episode where Wojciehowicz arrests someone for not following his orders after failing to identify himself as a cop. Miller is trying to cover asses and is reduced to telling the woman that she should have known he was a cop by the authoritative tone with which he issued his commands.

I'm also reminded of the man posing as a policeman who mugged my sister many years ago. He verbally identified himself as a police officer and had a badge on a chain around his neck. She was momentarily confused and that was enough time for him to yank open her car door, grab her purse, and nearly rip her arm off as he tore it from her grasp. Then he ran back to his vehicle behind her and him and his buddy made tracks.

In both the fictional and real examples above, after a person who either is or is pretending to be a cop issues orders, the failure of the totality of circumstances to add up to "Oh, that's a real policeman telling me to do something!" results in enough cognitive dissonance to make a person pause for a surprisingly long time before taking action. In this case, from the sudden opening of the door to the first shots fired was about 4 seconds, definitely not 5. If someone is in Condition White, chowing down on their burger, and has a deadly threat suddenly materialize, I can easily understand how they would make the snap judgement to put it in gear and hit the gas. The fact that this person made the decision and took action in ~2-3 seconds is actually a pretty remarkably quick recovery from Condition White. It may have been the wrong decision in retrospect...but how often are we called upon to forgive police officers who make wrong decisions because they had to make a snap decision and only had a partial picture of the circumstances?

NOTE, and getting back to reality -

I'm making these statements as an attempt to help with a broader analysis and just to give people things to ponder. When it comes down to it, I'm 95% sure that your take on "Part 1" is correct and no one will formally judge the policeman to be the aggressor. I'm just not 100% sure.

I'm just saying I can see how that argument could be made.

 

[toddnjoyce]

If anything, this should reinforce keeping your doors locked at all times. Don’t give somebody the chance to open your door to begin with.

 

[benenglish]

...was there room for the car to have pulled forward immediately...?

No. He was pulled into a parking spot with a curb in front of him.

...did they possibly go into reverse with intent to strike the officer?

Anything is possible but there didn't seem to be time for him to form intent to harm the officer. It looked like pure, panicked fight or flight to me.

ETA - Upon further review, there's evidence he instinctively tried to avoid hurting the officer. He didn't back straight up which would be more likely to hit the officer. He didn't turn his wheels to the right to swing the front of the car in the direction of the officer. He turned his wheel a bit to the left, not enough to hit the car next to him but enough to actually provide the person who surprised him with more clearance from his vehicle and point his car in the direction he wanted to exit.

Also, note how quickly he reaches for the shifter. His flight response was in full engagement in about a second after the officer opened the door, slightly before or simultaneous with him asking "Why?"

 

[FireInTheWire]

Each situation is unique but having ran enough scenarios and having been in like situations as I replied to Ben:

-call for additional officers, k9 and a helo
-wait, observe and coordinate until pushed into engagement by a change in the situation or my resources are in place.
-deploy tire deflation devices at likely exits
-*assuming* the suspects are still just sitting there, pop on lights, get on the PA and give instructions and go with a run of the mill high risk stop.

I've literally followed a stolen car around for 15 minutes before as we just drove around town before all the units I wanted got in to place. He ran when we turned on lights, but I have a helicopter above us and officers a few hundred yards away with tire deflation devices and the stolen car didnt get anywhere. Had he spooked when he saw a marked police car behind him I'd have turned on lights and chased, but there was no pressing need for me to initiate contact if I had time to hold.

Push vs the hold

What is pushing me to act vs the advantage of holding (or moving slower) and creating a position of strength and awareness.

I saw the suspect pause and delay as he evaluated the situation. He realized it was one officer, on foot and that he had a good chance of driving away. Had the officer had time to get even one other car and set up a wedge behind even if the car had reversed *maybe* the use of deadly force would not have happened. All of us should use time to our advantage. They officer here gave time and space up, which, while not illegal or de-justifying the shoot, can get you really hurt.

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Ok so you stand by your post stating that this incident is justified? You really gonna stand behind that?

Yes or no?

 

[cycleguy2300]

Ok so you stand by your post stating that this incident is justified? You really gonna stand behind that?

Yes or no?

I've explained this matter as it fits within case law as I understand it, at length, and have in return been insulted.

I have nothing to add and no reason to be insulted for an attempt to explore an incident in the light of what courts have said in other situations.

I'm not going to make some additional statement just so you can make more ignorant and insulting statements about my character.

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[Mowingmaniac 24/7]

tnj,

Thank you!

 

[FireInTheWire]

I've explained this matter as it fits within case law as I understand it, at length, and have in return been insulted.

I have nothing to add and no reason to be insulted for an attempt to explore an incident in the light of what courts have said in other situations.

I'm not going to make some additional statement just so you can make more ignorant and insulting statements about my character.

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Clearly we’ll get nowhere with this.

I don’t care what the courts say. This is bad policing. And you seem ok with that…

 

[TheDan]

The fact that this person made the decision and took action in ~2-3 seconds is actually a pretty remarkably quick recovery from Condition White. It may have been the wrong decision in retrospect...

I agree with everything in your post, and to the above, even if you realize in the middle of a snap action that it's the wrong one, you have to commit to surviving the encounter. You can turn yourself in later.

 

[toddnjoyce]

This LEOs day just keeps getting worse. Since he was still probationary, his union has hung him out to dry.

San Antonio police union will not represent McDonald's shooting officer - KTSA

The San Antonio Police Officers' Association will not represent the officer who shot a critically wounded a...

www.ktsa.com

 

[Sasquatch]

This LEOs day just keeps getting worse. Since he was still probationary, his union has hung him out to dry.

San Antonio police union will not represent McDonald's shooting officer - KTSA

The San Antonio Police Officers' Association will not represent the officer who shot a critically wounded a...

www.ktsa.com

That certainly won't help with recruiting, if potential applicants don't think their forced-to-join union is going to represent them if they wind up in a similar scenario. If this guy gets acquitted, he's still looking at maybe a million bucks in legal fees.