Houston police release shooting video to dispel claims victim was unarmed
Footage includes video from store, police body cams.
Officials in Houston released video footage Thursday showing police officers shooting a black man who police said had been holding a gun while standing in a street.
Footage taken from the body camera of one of the officers shows them moving toward Alva Braziel, 38, after he was shot in the early morning hours of July 9. Blood stained the front of his white shirt as an officer removed a handgun from his right hand. The body-cam footage released by police begins after the shooting happened, though nearby surveillance video captured the shooting.
Mayor Sylvester Turner said during a news conference Thursday that the footage was being released to dispel claims on social media that Braziel was unarmed.
“I don’t want a single police officer shot at and hurt based on erroneous information,” Turner said. “The community and police must work hand-in-hand. We both need each other.”
Turner noted that under state law such police video is usually not released until after both criminal and administrative investigations are completed. Houston police and the Harris County district attorney’s office are investigating the shooting.
But he said the deadly shootings of five officers in Dallas and three in Baton Rouge, La., have created tense relations and that releasing the footage was “in everyone’s best interest.”
“The reality is that this was not a case of an unarmed person being shot by police,” he said. Community activists and civil rights groups had called on the city to release all video footage from the shooting, and many of the groups have been critical of the Houston Police Department’s history of deeming nearly every police shooting justified in the past 11 years.
The footage released Thursday included a recording from a convenience store surveillance camera that shows Braziel in the distance. The video is dark and it’s difficult to see clearly what Braziel has in his hand and what happened in the moments before officers fired. It is then followed by body-cam footage showing the aftermath of the shooting.
Davis Haines, an attorney for Braziel’s family, didn’t immediately return a call Thursday for comment.
Police in Southeast Texas say a 5-year-old boy accidentally shot his 2-year-old brother in the leg after finding a handgun in his home.
Texas City police responded to the shooting Wednesday morning, the Galveston County Daily News reported.
Police say the 5-year-old had found the handgun in a bedroom and shot his brother in the middle of his right thigh. Police say a family member then rushed into the bedroom and called 911.
Police said the 2-year-old was in stable condition at a Galveston hospital.
No charges have been filed in relation to the incident. Police plan to discuss the possibility of charges with the district attorney’s office. A federal judge has ordered mediation in the wrongful
Authorities searching for a 7-year-old autistic girl who went missing from an Amarillo motel say the body of a young girl has been found in a nearby lake.
Amarillo Officer Jeb Hilton said Thursday that they have not yet released the identity of the body found, but have suspended the search for the missing girl, named Alexis Wartena.
An autopsy was set for Thursday.
The body was found Wednesday morning. Authorities had been searching for her since her family reported her missing late Tuesday afternoon.
Police say the family was traveling through the area. Police say the girl’s parents had taken their eyes off the girl for a few minutes and she left their motel room.
Police had said the girl didn’t speak but would answer to her name.