Acevedo's Body Count

Byron Carter, Jr.'s unjustified homicide by APD is a make or break case for Acevedo's reputation as a change agent.

How many more young African-American and Hispanic men must die before our city leadership acknowledges that we –still– have a problem in our police Department?

How many more contentious, community-splitting debates and public payouts to bereaved and injured families must occur before our Police department changes its shoot to kill policy?

How many more complaints, protests, speeches, community coalitions, letters, feature stories, resolutions, town hall meetings and memorials must occur before the demands of our citizens are finally acknowledged and acted upon?

I say not one more. Let Byron Carter, Jr.’s unnecessary death finally be the catalyst for real change.

Acevedo must decide within the next 72 hours whether Carter’s killer will be held accountable from a departmental standpoint (a Grand Jury has not yet considered whether legal charges will be brought). Will he fire him for unjustifiably shooting an unarmed youth, or fire both officers for lying…as it’s becoming clear that both are? Acevedo is on record - before he was hired - saying he would fire any officer for lying.

DOJ SPOKE TOO SOON

The Department of Justice (DOJ) came here four years ago to study why we had proportionately high unarmed youth of color dying at the hands of our police. They closed their use of force investigation three days prior to this shooting, but this incident may well have made a distinct difference in their response. Instead of breaking down critical incidents and assessing which were and weren’t justified, as the community understood they were going to do, in addition to a few final recommendations, they closed out the last segment of the inquiry by specifically noting the improvements at APD.

It’s likely the DOJ thought that between the one very questionable shooting death (Sanders) and the somewhat “cleaner” one (Contreras had a gun even if he wasn’t aiming it at anyone), there wasn’t enough evidence of a pattern under him, although, we thought, their charge was to look at the past 15-20 years of shootings. It’s likely that because he was so responsive to the policy recommendations, they granted him something of a pass…or a vote of confidence. Much like Obama getting the Nobel Peace Prize as an “incentive” to end a war or two.

Unfortunately, much like the Nobel committee’s charge isn’t to award peace prizes based on the potential for peace, the DOJ’s charge isn’t to judge excessive force by the potential for it’s curbing.

As it stands, for all the good brought to APD, we still have unarmed youth of color being killed by police officers.

THE PREDICTABLY SHORT HONEYMOON

Art Acevedo swooped into town in the spring of 2007 and charmed us all. Upon his hiring that summer, he gave us our long-sought disciplinary matrix! He got rid of some dead weight. He made policy changes. He made improvements in training and set a new tone for a more responsive, less brutal department. He got out and about in the community at every opportunity. The gains were measurable; the signs, hopeful.

Kevin Brown was shot by Michael Olsen just prior to Chief Acevedo taking leadership, but he did get charged with disciplining Olsen, and did the right thing in firing him. Had Stan Knee earlier fired Olsen for the 2002 brutal treatment of Jeffrey Thornton, as captured on the Texas Lottery videocameras on 6^th St., Brown would still be alive today. It seemed clear with the 2007 firing of Olsen that unlike Knee, Acevedo wasn’t going to put up with excessive force under his watch.

But since then, there’s not been one firing for unjustified lethal force, much less excessive force – in his four and a half years of leadership. There was his public exposing of video of an officer unjustly tasering an African-American motorist he pulled over on Mopac, admonishing him and setting an “example” for all to follow…but the Chief considered that humiliation his discipline.

There’s been firings for lying, investigative failings, drugs, alcohol/DWI and hanging out with prostitutes, but none related to abuse of power/racial profiling or unjustified force, and that’s what still pervades the force and continues to foster distrust with the community. Profiling and force have not decreased under Acevedo.

There’s been four incidents in his tenure where it isn’t disputable someone pointed a gun at officers, although one or two of them might have been averted had key family members been brought in to talk someone down or specialists (psychologists or conflict resolution experts) to mitigate the situation before SWAT bust in. When someone is holed up in a home alone with a gun…time is on your side, but patience is not APD’s greatest virtue.

The point is that, under his watch, Chief Acevedo hasn’t disciplined any officer over, or even questioned circumstances around, any lethal force. He has yet to see a shooting death he didn’t like.

He wants so badly to have a “clean” record as Chief as far as the dead bodies go, that he can’t fathom a lethal mistake….except the one that happened just before he got here…where it was Knee’s fault.

MR. I’M STICKING TO IT!

And while I’m getting my Psychology 101 on, his bigger problem is that he makes up his mind from the get-go. Before seeing all the evidence…before seeing how eventually-revealed evidence completely undermines his officers’ initial stories, he decides exactly what happened, and by God, he sticks to it.

Hours after Nathaniel Sanders died, Acevedo said, on camera, it was “a good shooting;” that there was a struggle for the gun. There was not, as expert opinions via KeyPoint and civil suit discovery shows—there were only 4 seconds between his waking and the first bullet that took his life; it took that long for Quintana to stumble back behind the car. Also, there were no fingerprints on the gun. But the “struggle” scenario would be the story forevermore, despite the evidence and the City’s first-ever wrongful death settlement where the officer wasn’t fired for it.

Hours after Devin Contreras died, still at the scene, Acevedo said the officer did the right thing and when I asked if he had seen the video yet, he said, “no, I haven’t made it back to the station yet.” My jaw dropped. He simply took the word of the officer that Contreras shot his gun first and went on camera saying such. So that became the public story…but it was too late, despite the evidence that showed Contreras didn’t shoot his gun.

Byron Carter is another victim of his faulty, prejudiced when it comes to lethal actions by his department.

Of course, all these fictions APD creates include loudly touting any criminal history of the deceased. If they paint them “thugs,” people won’t care if they died. It’s de-facto justified, so they think. Too bad for them that’s not the way the law works…hence the civil lawsuits – and the settlements.

Ace’s boss, Marc Ott does nothing to correct this, much less our elected officials who are the boss of Ott. In fact, there’s much evidence, especially in Ott’s case, that they enable it by not disciplining him, and going so far as helping him, if not leading him, to cover it up. Keypoint-Gate, anyone?

GOING HOME TO GRANDMA

This time, there's no excusing the death because of any gun in the car, much less in the hand, much less an excuse of previous wrongdoing/probable cause – despite what was initially put out in the media, yet again…

The officers said they saw the victims, 19-year old Byron Carter, Jr., and his 16 year old friend, "casing cars," but lost them and then supposedly found them later getting into a car--which was their own—despite what APD reported to media in the days following.

But, as always, the truth seeps out well after the false story is planted in the public consciousness.

According to the lawsuit, it looks as if the officers saw two African-American youth, mistook them for the earlier car casers and tried to stop them from leaving by shooting up their car. Then they crafted a tall tale realizing how seriously they just screwed up. (It should be noted Austin police have a union contractual right the rest of us don’t enjoy: they don’t have to answer to investigators for 48 hours following a critical incident.) But it seems 48 hours is still not enough to cover your tracks…see below the story, “FACTS AND HOLES.”

What’s not in question is that either one officer or both fired four shots into Carter’s body.

Now that the truth is coming out, it certainly looks like these young men saw two guys in the dark (in dark clothes) running toward them, guns pointed at them, right after they got in and started their car. There is no evidence that officers identified themselves. The young men, naturally, high-tailed it out of their parking space as gunfire poured into their car—whether they did that before gunfire started or after is irrelevant, they thought they were in danger. Whether they hit a car that rolled into one of the officers that they couldn’t see at that point (being that the parked car was obscuring his position), is irrelevant too, as officers are trained to position themselves safely in these situations. They were trying to simply stay alive; they didn’t have TIME to use the car as a weapon.

THE OLD SWITCHAROONIE

The Grand Jury DROPPED CHARGES on the surviving 16 year old, the driver. This is frankly remarkable – Grand Juries do not fail to find fault with African-American youth charged with attempted murder of a police officer, EVER.

Funny thing is, His Chiefness loves to call me on the phone or get in front of news cameras to gloat when Grand Juries fail to indict his officers over something, as if that means something. It doesn’t when the reason for that is the D.A. withholds key evidence that would allow them to legally indict – so she can get her next police union contributions. Yet in this particular case, he’s gone on record to paint the Grand Jury as either incompetent or biased towards the 16 year old (as if there is any precedence to that) by saying they had plenty of evidence to do so, but chose not to.

This, of course, insinuates HE has plenty of evidence to defend his officer…hence the concern he isn’t planning to do the right thing and fire him (or both).

But the Grand Jury hasn’t addressed the officer yet, and they almost always have him cleared well before the police Internal Affair report is done (don’t ask how they can judge something not yet investigated—that just seems to be accepted across the board).

But if the Grand Jury doesn’t indict the officer (Lehmberg hasn’t met an officer she wanted to indict in her tenure as District Attorney), then we have a serious problem. There’s a dead body with 4 bullet holes in it and no one’s at fault? It was an accident???

And similarly, if the Chief doesn’t fire the officer(s), but the officer(s) gets indicted, then what? How will he explain that away?

BOTTOM LINE:

No matter what these young men were doing prior to getting in the car, and no matter what they were doing as the car was moving, shooting the passenger 4 times all over his body was in no way, shape or form justifiable. Shooting the passenger neither prevents the car from hurting an officer or prevents the car from leaving the scene (although shooting to prevent someone leaving is not justifiable, by law, unless the person poses an imminent threat to the public safety and casing cars doesn’t).

Nelson Linder of the NAACP-Austin told the Citizen Review Panel a week ago, the officers “should be fired, no questions asked.” He said the shooting was indefensible and the most disturbing case of police brutality that he'd seen in a decade.

Bryon was going home to Grandma. He called her 15 minutes prior to being shot (while he was “casing cars”?) and said he’d be home soon, having no idea what was about to prevent that from happening. No idea, of course, because he wasn’t doing anything that would threaten his own demise.

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FACTS AND HOLES

Basic Facts:
--5/30/11: 2 APD officers on foot shot at 2 African-American youth in a car that belonged to the driver
-- Byron Carter, Jr., 20, was an unarmed passenger and was shot dead with 4 bullets to his body from a wide range of angles
--the 16 year old driver (name not released) was shot in the arm, and survived
--the 16 year old drove to Disch-Faulk parking lot and walked home where he was apprehended

(read III.B “Night of the Shooting” in the civil lawsuit)

Officers’ Version:
--they say they thought the youth were casing cars earlier; that they tried to follow them but lost them
--they then spotted and ran towards two African-American suspects getting into a car, and were certain these were the same two casing cars earlier, in fact, they were certain that the car they were in was stolen (it wasn’t) and that was the sole reason they were attempting to detain them in the first place

--they said they were attempting to escape and used the car as a weapon against the officers
--the police said one of the officers got pinned between two cars (and this is where it gets fuzzy: at first the story was between the suspects car and the adjacent parked vehicle…then the story was that it between the adjacent parked vehicle and the parked vehicle adjacent to that
--the officer that got hit got hit fell to the ground

--Officer Rodriguez hurt his ankle…suffering a “ruptured Achilles tendon” –one account said both officers were injured, but didn’t mentioned how Wagner was inured

HOLES:

--Rodriguez getting hit by this parked car and falling to the ground was actually rarely mentioned in the media stories…it is unclear if the car made physical contact with him at all or if he just fell on his own trying to get to safety or trying to get to a better shooting position

-- it’s clear by the statements Wagner didn’t see Rodriguez fall, he just saw him after he was already on the ground, as Acevedo noted in the press conference: “Wagner heard Rodriguez scream as he fell;” Wegner said about Rodriguez he “feared he was pinned” or was “afraid he was trapped”; it’s unclear what Rodriguez reported himself – that has not been mentioned in media - conveniently.
--there’s no explanation of how Rodriguez would have been "pinned and being dragged under the car" when the car he was supposedly “pinned” by was a parked car in between him and the moving vehicle. If Rodriguez was hit so hard by this parked vehicle, such that Wagner thought he’d be drug along the street by a parked vehicle, then why are there no other injuries to Rodriguez above his ankle where a fender would make contact?
-- the uninjured officer shot at suspects "through the windshield" – so how did Carter get a bullet to the back of his head? Did only Wagner shoot at the “suspects” or did Rodriguez shoot too? If so, why was this not reported? If Rodriguez was shooting, then how did he do it while on the ground, being drug by a parked car?

--where is mention of training issues where officers shouldn’t try to apprehend suspects in a moving, or a soon-to-be-moving vehicle by placing themselves in danger of being hit by the car? OR training about stopping a moving vehicle and aiming for the DRIVER?

Quintana Arbitration Hearing: City Wins by Damning Themselves, Again

Well, the City and APD hasn't scrubbed its “schizophrenic mess” clean quite yet; we won’t know for certain until the arbitrator rules mid-October. But for most hearing observers, there’s little indication the arbitrator will see ANY reason to put Leonardo Quintana, gun and Taser in hand, back on the force.

Or we can hope. These hearings show how much our City gave away in contract negotiations with the police union such that one person can override the Chief’s opinion along with a whole chain of command that an officer is not fit for duty. Not a jury of his peers, much less citizen overseers, but one person, who is completely unaccountable to the community, decides. Firefighters, meter maids, municipal court judges, private sector employees; no one has such recourse if fired or disciplined in Texas. Just cops.

APD's Dizzying Definition of "Good Cop"

“Nominally, the firing and this hearing addressed every bad moment in Quintana's APD career except the most notorious, his May 2009 shooting of Nathaniel Sanders II…” noted Michael King of the Austin Chronicle. But former “nine-year APD veteran Leonardo Quintana appeared relaxed, smiling at times as his supervisors revealed a list of dirty laundry,” as described in KVUE’s next-day coverage. So “relaxed” it was eerie, seemingly full of confidence in his claim that he "had an exemplary career.”

But his bosses painted an entirely different picture…or did they?

Reminds me of a another personnel issue where APD rookie Ramon Perez believed himself unfairly dismissed and diligently attempted to seek justice through a federal civil suit with a religious discrimination claim. Up until the last month of his employment, APD documented Perez as a competent officer, recognizing his leadership and people skills, but after a small cabal of supervisors decided ‘his kind wasn’t needed here,’ ended up saying he was a bad cop: “unsafe” (complete with new, contradictory documents). This officer has since served Pflugerville and hasn’t yet put a bullet in the back of anybody’s head, much less been arrested for drunk driving.

It is amazing how a story changes at APD depending on internal personality conflicts or external political factors, and how many red flags are -or should be- raised from the resulting gaps in logic. Was Quintana a good cop, according to superiors when he shot Sanders and all those previous times they chose not to discipline him on other infractions and only became a bad cop only the moment he drank and drove? They had given other officers with off-duty DWIs multiple-day suspensions vs. termination, so what makes him a “bad cop” and them “good,” worthy of keeping? (There is the small matter of his also carrying a firearm; attempting to flee the scene –which could/should have been another charge on him-- and refusing the breathalyzer, yet this wasn’t mentioned at the hearing by the City in context with the other disciplinary actions).

Should a Cop Be a Cop if He Breaks the Law?

Quintana didn’t actually “break the law” as far as the courts are concerned, but at the hearing, never did speakers insert the word “allegedly” before saying “driving while intoxicated.” Heck, not even Tom Stribling, Quintana’s attorney, used it. This speaks volumes about how law enforcement takes for granted that all their arrests are, in fact, valid arrests. He hasn’t been indicted by Williamson County yet, a hand-ringing situation for them, if you were to judge by WilCo prosecutors’ actual hand-ringing during the hearing (and some frustrated tears by one in the hallway). In fact, they are so worried about how the publicity of this hearing will affect their proceedings, they asked the City to not air this hearing on Channel 6 until they adjudicate their case…months from now. Thankfully, the City didn’t grant the request (it aired the following two days, but it is not downloaded on the City website for viewing).

He didn’t “break the law” either in 2005, when he shoved his way into his girlfriend’s home against her wishes, since she was later convinced by others to drop the charges and change her 911-call story from: Quintana shoving her onto the ground/hurting her; to: her “accidentally tripping” and Quintana trying to prevent her fall. She was a fellow officer; females don’t seem to be afforded as much leeway as the males at APD.

Interim Chief Cathy Ellison (herself a pawn during the police chief selection game), waved off filing a criminal charge for Quintana but did, however, grant a 15-day administrative suspension, stating in her memo that his actions "constituted criminal trespass." This was later reduced to a verbal reprimand by Chief Acevedo because…well…he felt sorry for pobre Leonito that the basis of the domestic dispute – cruise ship tickets that would go to waste now that the couple was at odds — had cost him some personal money and that his unpaid suspension was going to cost him even more (he made $88,000/year thereabouts and drove a Cadillac Escalade, not exactly indigent). Or something to that effect. I asked reporters at the hearing their take and all were as confused as I. Definitely doesn’t pass the smell-test.

So the story is: he was “officer of the year” from 2002 until December of 2009, except if you exclude his not turning on the video camera in May, 2009. Although by dismissing the other infractions found around the shooting by the Police Monitor/Citizens Review Panel as well as by KeyPoint, the narrative became that not turning on the camera was 'simply an oversight,' so he was still a “good cop,” essentially. The 15-day suspension didn’t exactly send the message that he’d done wrong, since it simultaneously insulted the community by being so minimal considering an unarmed young man was dead.

How Much Support is Too Much Support?

So there were supposedly no red flags on this man, despite the numerous complaints filed on him, despite the 2005 community report on his abuse of Tasers (5 times in 9 months is an extraordinary record), until he admitted to having a drinking problem in late 2009. Even then, he wasn’t mandated to go to rehabilitation. It was voluntary — and he volunteered not to go.

It also seems his “tumultuous” relationship with APD Officer Lori Noriega wasn’t any indication that he had issues that might affect his work because as APD Lt. Jessica Robledo stated in testimony (and other officers echoed in theirs), it’s quite prevalent that officers have unhealthy personal relationships; considerably more unhealthy than the general population, it seems.

What are APD’s psychologists doing over there besides getting good cops fired (as in Perez’s case)? What kind of “support” are they offering officers?

None of the other officers the night of his DWI were investigated (others likely drove drunk if they drank alongside Quintana, they just didn’t put their car in a trench). “The entire episode reflects an alarming, if unsurprising, casual drinking culture among cops, not the most recommended form of stress-relief for armed officers” (Michael King). While it’s no one’s business what an officer does off duty unless he breaks the law, if they are going to overuse substances, the public safety is impacted on and off-duty if they drink to excess or pop steroids, as both contribute to aggressive behavior and alcohol has the added bonus of depression.

Given all the red flags we can now see in hindsight, and that the City admitted to in the hearing despite trying to paint a completely different picture of him as they defend him in the civil suit, we must ask: what’s APD’s distinction between support and enabling; or abetting, even?

“Schizophrenic Mess” Describes APD Too

There’s no support if you buck the politics that keep the blue shield firmly in place, but if you are an overtly aggressive, girlfriend abuser who carries his gun off duty (as a matter of habit?) with the mindset to flee the scene of your own crime…you get one or two slaps on the hand for the ‘mishaps,’ then a few pats on the back and an “Officer of the Year” or two award!

APD holds THIS guy up as the MODEL officer…then comes to testify what a bad cop he’s been all along – or was it only since May or was it December of 2009? Meanwhile, they gave Ramon Perez the Ernie Hinckle Humanitarian Award — but later (their psychologist) deemed him too humane to safely serve in the department.

In 2007, Perez received another award, being named the ACLU-TX Central Texas Chapter "Civil Libertarian of the Year," for “his courage, bravery and unwavering commitment to protect the Constitution and serve with integrity.” He chose NOT to use excessive force and buy into the “forget what you learned in the academy, this is how we do it on the streets” mentality, despite pressure to do otherwise. His story, extraordinarily documented by Michael Brooks, is a must-read for APD police accountability advocates. It intimately describes the “schizophrenic mess” that is our police department: holding officers to certain standards on paper, but actually expecting something different.

Perez lost the case despite the City contradicting itself throughout the trial. Still, the City won because juries won’t indict their government for fear of having to face up to bigger issues that need to be addressed, and darn it, we just don’t have time to pay attention! Like the Quintana hearing, they tried to prove what a “bad cop” Perez was despite not taking any action during that time to address those supposed issues.

But if Perez was so “unsafe,” then, as The Austin Chronicle posed, “why allow him to resign and keep his peace officer's license?” We don’t know yet how the DWI will affect Quintana’s peace officer’s license, he may lose it if he pleas…but as of now, he is working in private security and maintains it.

When a Leonardo Quintana is coddled, but a Ramon Perez is run out on a rail...Austin – we have a problem.

“Poor Judgment is a Mitigating Factor” – for Cops…or at least for cops who play the game right

“Back to Work. I'm ready to go at it again. Here we come so bring on the bad guys.”

This was the headline under a picture Quintana posted on his FaceBook page holding an AR-15 in his uniform – before being ordered by superiors to take it down immediately (a fact not revealed until this hearing). “In yo’ FACE!” he essentially said to the Sanders family and community of Austin. He had just come off of his 15 day suspension for not turning on his video camera before shooting a person who was asleep 2 seconds prior to having the first bullet in his shoulder.

"It was an ass-chewing. ... I'd never been talked to like that before in this department,” Quintana described of his supervisor’s demand he take it down...testimony so rife with symbolism it was dubbed “Quote of the Week” by the Austin Chronicle. Unfortunately, it seems “exemplary” Lenny didn’t understand why posting the picture was in poor taste which caused APD to finally admit that it’s that kind of disconnect that makes him a “bad cop.”

So the real problem is that he’d “never been talked to like that before.”

"We believe he should have been fired for the shooting. We believe he should have been fired for a number of incidents before the shooting...There were many red flags in this officer’s career that predicted something like this occurring." – Adam Loewy, Sanders family attorney

“But cops are human too!” was Stribling’s and the APA’s defense. Quintana was 'basically' a good cop, he’s just prone to messing up...a lot, it seems, according to his superiors who nonetheless didn’t see fit to discipline him over multiple complaints or only offered a hand-slap if they did.

We, the People, don’t get to use the “oops, I’m human” excuse in officer encounters, but aren’t THEY supposed to be held to a higher standard, not the other way around?

So “poor judgment” can be tolerated over and over until the public is paying attention and it reflects poorly on the department. Only then will APD out a truly unsafe officer, or quash one who speaks against officer abuse of power.

The Disappearing Victim Card Trick

“Lenny Quintana is not the victim here,” said Michael Cronig for the City, which is ironic because after the shooting that’s all we heard about, what a victim Officer Quintana is! It’s about time they admitted otherwise.

There are many victims in his wake, however: from fellow female officers to people shot with 50,000 volts in the back (fleeing means they aren't posing a threat to the officer), to the countless complaintants and likely many more who didn’t complain (for fear of retaliation or understandable lack of faith in the oversight system), and, of course, Nathaniel Sanders, II and his survivors.

“It's still difficult to this day,” Quintana, attempting to reclaim the victim role, testified about his shooting Sanders. But if he is so certain it was justified and that the public outcry and the hired consultants’ findings were baseless, then what was driving him to “self-medicate” with alcohol?

What ARE They Saying About Us Down at 8th and Colorado?

The City tried to get the Perez case thrown out after the Federal District Court ruled it should go to trial. Until this point, I had seen the City stomp their feet with the courts when defending officers (or in this case defending APD against an officer) and mostly get their way. I had not yet seen such a harshly-written response from a federal judge to our City (“Defendants”) essentially telling them to stop wasting the court’s time with their crap:

“Although they couch their arguments in various legal forms, Defendants essentially quibble with the district court's determination that there is a genuine factual issue as to the reasons for Perez's termination. But the district court expressly found that there was a genuine issue of fact as to whether Defendants terminated Perez for his religious beliefs, and in an interlocutory appeal of qualified immunity, this determination is unassailable.”

The judges saw the writing on the wall, unfortunately, in four short days of reviewing 1000s of pages of information and hearing +/-25 hours of testimony, the jury could not.

THEN came the letter from Judge Sparks to our City after our Council voted down the Sanders settlement, a negotiation they had previously ordered go forward. The Judge ordered the City vote more than 25 days before a scheduled trial begins since judges “cannot rely on the City of Austin to support the recommendations of its lawyers.”

He went onto say that his “court accepted the lawyers at their word and removed the case from the July 19, 2010 trial, a mistake (I) will not make again,” adding that it had already resulted in “a substantial expense to the American taxpayer.”

I don’t see the City being able to stamp its feet and get what it wants in any federal courtroom anytime soon, but the question is…how much will our loss of credibility cost us in future litigation?

Worst Case Scenario

If Quintana gets back on the force, it will be to the detriment of Austin…as our loss of Officer Perez to Pflugerville was. The community will become even more negatively impacted over the furor that would surround such a ruling, but it would be the City’s fault for their own lack of accountability over some officers and for all their missteps following the Sanders shooting.

And the saga continues…