Colored drawing by Anthony Jensen

Friday, June 5, 2020

Unarmed & Questionable Deaths Under Chief Manley

NAME            ETHNICITY/Age     Killed     Officer/s who Killed         Weapon on victim

(UNARMED)

Michael Ramos     Black-Hispanic/42     4/2020      Christopher Taylor**                 none
                                                                        (Mitchell Pieper fired beanbag rounds prior)

In response to a call about someone in a car doing drugs/holding a gun, officers surrounded Ramos, although it wasn't the right car/right person. He got out of his car as ordered and put his hands up, showing his waistband was clear; regardless, one of the officers chose to fire at him with a beanbag rifle, hitting him in the stomach, causing him to fall to the ground.  Ramos ducked in his car and proceeded to drive away from officers but towards a dead end of the parking lot - very very slowly, not making it 20' before Taylor fires a lethal round 3 times. APD used to have a policy not to use lethal force on a fleeing vehicle unless the person is a danger to himself or others, but Manley quietly reversed this policy prior to this. Since Ramos aimed to drive to what was the end of the parking lot/parking spaces--he couldn't have have been "fleeing" anyway. Chief Manley has taken no steps to discipline/fire Taylor, and in fact, has shown he is fine with the whole thing.
VIDEO: There are 3 witness phone videos known, while APD withholds the in-car/bodycam videos.  

**Christopher Taylor shot a mentally unstable man "holding" a knife (no mention of threatening officers with it) 9 months earlier/see below: DeSilva


Enrique "Henry" Quiroz      Hispanic/40    3/2020   Eduardo Pineda & Spencer Hanna       none

In response to a trespassing call, officers used their Tasers on him and he died shortly afterwards of a "medical episode" (code for their bogus term "excited delirium" - something the AMA says is NOT a thing - to help exonerate the officers and/or the weapon in the victim's death) -- he died at the scene. Investigation under way. Family speaks out three months later...because the media didn't pick it up. First off, they say he had permission to be there, so there was no "trespassing," and they described that "he was beaten, tazed, and dragged down the stairs like an animal." However, this was described by APD on their in-custody death report as the officers "helping" him down the stairs. But a little critical thought, media..."help" isn't a red flag to you on an APD report?
VIDEO-should be body cam video, unlikely we'll see it, cuz MANLEY.


Hugo Alvarez        Hispanic/28      3/2018       Matthew Judd (SWAT team member)   none

Alvarez called 911 because he thought people were breaking into his home. With obvious mental health issues, it seems Alvarez didn't believe it was the cops who were trying to "break into his home" after he called them to respond to a break in. No experts were called in to handle communications, so it devolved quickly with him firing a shot inside the home after they sent a robot to breach the front door. No one inside was hurt, but then he fired externally and injured an officer. They finally convinced him to put his weapon down and come out. APD claims he came out with his mother in front of him/using her as a shield, so they assumed he was armed and shot him. Two weeks later, Manley admitted Alvarez was NOT armed when he came out of the house. The Grand Jury deliberated 16 hours, a very long time for an officer indictment, but cleared the officer. His brothers AND mother (who was supposedly being held hostage) are suing APD over this, mainly because they want the video from the robot to become public to prove Alvarez left his gun inside.
VIDEO: from the robot if not cars and body cams...as per usual, the DA hasn't released it despite her case being closed

(ARMED/but could have handled differently/with less lethal force or REPORTEDLY ARMED or THEY LIED)

Dr. Mauris DeSilva, PhD  Southeast Asian/46   7/2019                                     knife
                   Karl Krycia & Christopher Taylor shot him while Joseph Cast deployed his Taser

Having a mental health breakdown while "holding a knife" when fired upon by two APD officer and Tasered by another (really bad cop form). Questions still linger about whether he actually threatened the officers with the knife since all we get is that he was "holding" one, and if one officer thought a Taser was enough, why did the other ones shoot? No discipline and the DA says she doesn't have enough resources to bring an indictment to bad cops (one of many reasons she's about to lose her incumbency to a relative new-comer.) 
VIDEO: Never released


Carlos Dodero          Hispanic/45      4/2019    Hugh Butler & William Bertelson        gun (?)

The man had his issues, for sure, and he definitely showed violent tendencies...but did he have a gun? Eyewitnesses who temporarily restrained him say no.  And curiously, an officer on the scene but nowhere near the shooting was not just disciplined - but DEMOTED - for something--APD's not saying. 
VIDEO: should be some body camera video/ DA hasn't announced she won't indict officially, but obviously not

(The remainder have all had the DA officially decline to indict officers):

Paul Cantu               Hispanic/27       1/2019         Luis Camacho & Robert Mattingly    gun (?)

The family is suing, saying he didn't have a gun - the whole APD story is strange, so this remains under 'community investigation' as it were. Until we can see video, the onus is on APD to prove Cantu had a gun.

Aquantis "Ajay" Griffin        Black/18            8/2018                                                      gun
                    8 officers, including Joseph Cast who was present in the DeSilva case

For two years, there wasn't solid reason to doubt that Griffin pointed his gun at officers (but NOTHING excuses the 30 rounds sprayed into him -much of which was AFTER he was on the ground - AND being tasered), but as of 9/2020, a lawsuit reveals the existence of evidence suggesting Griffin never pointed his gun and instead turned to run away from officers, as explained by his family's attorneys.  VIDEO: nothing has been publicly released until now with the bystander video.

Leslie Yolanda Salazar       Hispanic/20       6/2018       Thomas Brown                    knife

Responding to a call that she chased her cousin with a knife, officers came into the home and she "walked around the corner with a knife" - and they order her to drop it and she "continues walking in their direction" as Chief Manley explained. She was a 95 lbs. young woman, obviously in need of mental health care, but why not less-lethal force?  
VIDEO: Likely. Have we seen it? hah.


Zachary Khabir Anam        Middle Eastern/19     1/2017       Ivan Wall           gun (WHY??)

College student suffering from mental health issue was arrested after a store robbery. Wall supposedly patted him down before putting him in his car, and on the way to HQ, Anam alerted Wall he was feeling suicidal to which Wall poked fun at, according to the in-car video. Anam pulled a gun out of his waist band and told the officer he was holding it to his own head. Wall stopped and got out of the car (and what, unsure--pointed his gun at him?), and FIVE MINUTES LATER, Anam shot himself. Wall was suspended for 20 days, which is a lot in cop-world, but was not indicted.  I CONSIDER HIS DEATH ENTIRELY ON APD's HEAD.
VIdeo:  In-car video but the public hasn't seen it  


Morgan Rankin          Black/30             2/2017           Benjamin Rogers                    knife

Another tragic mental health call. While we have video at the front end of the encounter showing her coming close to hitting 2 officers as she speeds off; we have NOT seen video of the actual shooting. They set spikes to stop her, which sent her crashing into a pole and they the report described that she got out and "approached him" (Rogers) with the knife. She JUST had a major car accident. She couldn't have possibly been threatening enough for deadly force ..."approached?" like a zombie???  Again...why not less lethal?

SEE THE OFFICE OF POLICE OVERSIGHT's 2018 CRITICAL INCIDENT REPORT specifying some more cases from that year; none of which at face value appear overtly questionable, but it does magnify the amount of APD caused deaths of mentally ill people (according to the TX Observer, Austin has the highest per capita rate of this).  It also magnifies that lethal force is used in very specific, POC-heavy parts of town.

Landon Nobles          Black/24          5/2017         Richard Egal & MaxJohnson       gun (?)

Police claim they heard gunshots on Sixth St., and on social media, saw video of a 24 year old man firing shots into the air. When they found the accused shooter, a foot chase ensued, and cops said they saw that he had a pistol and allegedly turned and fired shots at the officers so they fired back, killing him. Witnesses to the shooting (2 of whom I happen to know) who say they never saw a gun in Nobles hand during the chase and never saw him shoot;  that Egal threw his bike in front of him, causing Nobles to fall, then shot him in the back. It should be noted that immediately following, officers rounded up all the Sixth St. partiers they could muster in a 2 block area and made them sit and wait for an hour or more...not asking for names and contact info as witnesses, but telling them WHAT HAPPENED (this was relayed to me by different parties who did not know each other).
VIDEO: Of the actual shooting...sadly, no bystanders have turned over any video (the people I know were working security and didn't think to pull out their phone). No bodycam footage--that we know if. There may be tho from Egal. 


Lawrence Parish       Black/31        4/2017                                                                   rifle
  Paul Bianchi, Marcos Johnson, Dane O'Neill (all fired rifles) & Jordan Wagstaff (fired pistol)

He had a rifle, and the first few days of the story, we were told he fired at officers. THEN, it turns out, whoops - he didn't actually fire. They contend he pointed it at them - but who knows? How can we believe anything? District Attorney Moore said she'd release the evidence, including dash and body camera video, after the criminal case is closed, and it has been, but nothing. Crickets.

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