$100M suit filed in HPD shooting
Family: Five officers, department policy to blame in man’s death
Police Chief Art Acevedo fired the four officers who unloaded a barrage of bullets on Nicolas Chavez last year, lambasting their “not reasonable” response to a man in crisis picking up a used Taser. Now the dead man’s family wants justice in the sum of $100 million, contending that agency policy permitted its lawmen to shoot and kill in Chavez’s case.
A new federal lawsuit, filed Tuesday, comes nearly a year after officers found Chavez huddled under a streetlight in Houston’s Denver Harbor neighborhood and fatally shot him at the end of a lengthy attempt to help. His family has now advanced several claims unheard by the public, including that up to 70 officers watched the scene unfold.
They blame the department and five of its officers — including one who was not fired after the altercation — for allegedly using excessive force in the April 21 death, citing what they described as official policies that allowed Chavez’s death to happen.
“The Houston Police Department has a written policy that instructs officers such as the Defendants to shoot and kill citizens in possession of nonfunctioning (botched) tasers,” the lawsuit reads. “Defendants followed this policy to its letter when they shot and killed Decedent Nicolas Chavez.”
A review of use of force policies from 2015 and 2020 make no reference to such a scenario and HPD union leaders disputed the existence of such a policy.
Doug Griffith, HPOU president, said he was not aware of a mandate — even prior to department changes that Acevedo OK’d last summer — that instructs officers on how to react should a civilian pick up a spent Taser.
It’s next to impossible, he said, to know whether a dropped Taser has been used unless the officer who wielded the weapon has kept track of each cartridge.
Sean A. Roberts, one of the attorneys who filed the lawsuit, declined to respond to requests for more information on the policies he referenced, citing a need to maintain legal protocol as the case proceeds in court.
He said the suit focused on HPD policies, rather than racial bias, because three of the officers involved, like Chavez, were Hispanic.
“When the citizens of Houston realize that any one of us — regardless of racial identity — can be a victim of authorized, excessive use of force by a lawless police force then, and only then, can real change in the policies and practices of the police occur,” Roberts said.
City officials declined to comment on the details of the case.
“At this time we’re not familiar with the details of the lawsuit,” Mary Benton, city spokeswoman, said. “Now that it’s been filed, it will run its course through the court system.”
Updates to the use of force policy were made in the wake of longtime Houstonian George Floyd’s death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer. The revamped policy expands on de-escalation techniques to “reduce or minimize the use of physical force.”
Floyd’s death played a distinct role in Chavez’s case, amplifying calls that police release video in the east Houston shooting. Acevedo in September held a news conference where he did just that, with Mayor Sylvester Turner standing tearfully beside him.
Acevedo announced the officers’ firings at the same news conference, but only cited a “not reasonable” response to the mental health call and not any specific policy that was violated.
After seeing the video, some members of Chavez’s family remain unhappy with the department’s reaction to the death. They cite discrepancies in police accounts, including the number of times that Chavez was shot and one officer’s claim that he pointed the Taser at the responders.
“He put his hand on it and they blew him away,” mother Leantha Chavez said.
One of the fired officers, Sgt. Benjamin LeBlanc, told Internal Affairs investigators that he perceived Chavez as holding the Taser with a “shooting grip” and that he intended to fire the Taser toward him.
Body-worn camera footage that HPD released at the time of the quadruple firings showed Chavez weakly dragging the device’s wires toward him. The officers then opened fire as he reached the Taser, which was missing both cartridges.
“He never looks at it to shoot himself. He looks directly at me,” LeBlanc said, according to Houston police records. “At that moment, I make the decision to fire my duty weapon — my pistol at him two more times to end that threat.”
The internal review also found that LeBlanc was standing outside the Taser’s range, even if it had been armed, documents state.
The lawsuit names the four officers who were fired — LeBlanc, Luis Alvarado, Omar Tapia and Patrick Rubio — as well as a fifth, Kevin Nguyen. Attorneys for the family say the men violated Chavez’s constitutional rights by using excessive force, exhibiting cruel and unusual punishment, and depriving him of liberty or property without due process.
The officers also violated the constitutional right to due process for Chavez’s son by depriving him of a relationship with his father, the lawsuit alleges. Each of the officers are additionally accused of wrongful death, assault, gross negligence and negligence.
The city and police department are accused of failing to properly train their officers and violating the Texas Civil Rights and Remedies Code.
Chavez was among nine people — all men of color — killed by Houston police officers in 2020, six of whom died during a month-long stretch from April to May. Four people have similarly died this year at the hands of Houston police.