Deputy firing stands in deadly chokehold

A Harris County law enforcement board on Wednesday upheld the firing of a former sheriff ’s deputy who helped restrain a man as her husband choked him to death outside of a Houston-area Denny’s restaurant.

The Harris County Sheriff’s Civil Service Commission unanimously agreed that the Sheriff ’s Office was correct in relieving Chauna Thompson of duty, one commissioner stating he did not find her testimony credible.

The hearing centered around a May 28, 2017, altercation where Thompson’s then-husband, Terry Thompson, confronted 24-year-old John Hernandez for urinating outside a Denny’s along the Crosby Freeway. The argument turned physical, and Terry Thompson tackled and placed the young man in a chokehold.

Cellphone footage of the incident appeared to show Chauna Thompson by her husband’s side, helping him restrain Hernandez’s hand and cursing at him to stop moving. While offduty at the time, she helped perform CPR on the unconscious man, although it was unsuccessful. Hernandez died three days later.

Harris County attorneys delivered arguments on behalf of the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, saying Chauna Thompson had several options to de-escalate the situation before Hernandez stopped breathing.

“The Sheriff’s Office cannot employ individuals that lack the judgment that Ms. Thompson

lacked that night,” Assistant County Attorney Stan Clark said.

Attorney Greg Cagle, who represents Thompson, countered that Hernandez was the sole aggressor in the fight. He was clearly intoxicated and had a history of violence, Cagle said, and the district attorney’s charging of Terry and Chauna Thompson a week later prompted the Sheriff’s Office to bend to political pressure and fire the deputy.

Investigators found that Terry Thompson had shared racist posts against Hispanic people on Facebook, prompting widespread concerns that Hernandez’s death was racially motivated. Those allegations unjustly spread to his wife, Cagle said.

“Chauna Thompson didn’t do anything wrong,” he said.

The Sheriff’s Office fired Thompson in July 2017. After one

jury mistrial, her husband was convicted last November of murder and is now serving a 25-yearprison sentence.

Prosecutors then wiped the exdeputy’s murder charge just weeks before her scheduled jury trial. In April, prosecutors said they were unable to “prove beyond a reasonable doubt” that she committed a crime in Hernandez’s death.

Commissioners on Wednesday still sided with the Sheriff’s Office, whose representatives said that Thompson owed Hernandez the same level of protection as her husband.

One commissioner said that Thompson might have responded to the situation differently had her husband not been involved, and another said he didn’t believe Thompson’s statements that she saw her husband put Hernandez in a “bear hug,” not a “chokehold.”