Officer charged with murder seeks speedy trial
Attorneys for a Harris County Sheriff ’s Office sergeant indicted in the death of a man he’d been trying to apprehend are pushing prosecutors to go to trial within weeks — rapidly accelerating a judicial process that can typically take years to resolve.
The unusual request came Friday as the sergeant, Garrett Hardin, who was relieved of duty Thursday after a grand jury indictment in the July 2022 death of Roderick Brooks, turned himself in at the 262nd District Court on a murder charge. Hardin entered the courtroom alongside his attorney and a representative from a bail bonds company.
Prosecutors said they did not consider Hardin a flight risk and asked District Judge Lori Chambers Gray to set whatever bail amount she deemed appropriate for the 21-year veteran of the sheriff ’s office. She set his bail at $10,000, an amount that Hardin’s defense attorneys requested in court.
The judge also signed off on the motion for speedy trial. A trial date has been set for Nov. 27, Hardin’s attorneys said.
A prosecutor, Candice Freeman, described the allegation against Hardin in court, saying the sergeant tackled Brooks to the ground and lost control of his Taser after using it. Hardin had used the Taser on Brooks moments earlier, according to body camera footage.
Brooks got a hold of the stun device and pulled the trigger, Freeman said in court. Hardin then shot and killed Brooks.
One of Hardin’s defense attorneys, Lisa Andrews, said Hardin had been stunned with the device during the scuffle. Freeman countered that Hardin was likely not being stunned at the time he shot Brooks.
When authorities made Hardin’s body camera footage public after the shooting, Chief Deputy Mike Lee said in a statement that the sergeant lost control of his Taser and that Brooks then grabbed it. Hardin warned Brooks to drop the device when it could be heard activating a second time, Lee said.
He did not note whether Hardin had been stunned with the device.
The case, when it goes to trial, may repeat the scrutiny over the use of a Taser that played out during the 2022 proceedings involving a Baytown police officer. The officer, Juan Delacruz, had been accused of using excessive force in the shooting death of Pamela Turner in May 2019 after she grabbed the officer’s Taser and used it against him during a mental health crisis.
He was charged with aggravated assault by a public service. A jury ultimately acquitted him.
Hardin’s footage showed him confronting Brooks in the 15000 block of Kuykendahl — about a mile from a Dollar General, where an employee reported that Brooks shoved her and bolted as she confronted him over an allegation of stealing household goods. A witness told police that Brooks changed clothes at some point prior to Hardin catching up with him.
He shot Brooks within a minute of stepping out of his vehicle, according to the video.
During Hardin’s tenure with the sheriff’s office, he had been disciplined about half a dozen times — the latest about three months before the shooting, after complaints of “vulgar comments and “inappropriate conduct,” according to a copy of Hardin’s personnel file provided to the Houston Chronicle.
Lawyers for Brooks’ family, who have filed a federal civil lawsuit over the shooting, believe Hardin’s disciplinary history should have been considered during the bail discussions. In most cases, state law requires that judges grant bail to defendants, who are innocent until proved guilty. Judges consider the likelihood that a defendant will return to court or whether they pose a threat to the community when they set bail. In this case, Hardin could not receive a personal recognizance bond because he was charged with a violent offense.
“The disparity in bond amounts lays bare the racial biases and the preferential treatment extended to those in law enforcement,” the family lawyers said in a statement.
Brooks is Black, while the sergeant is white.
The criminal complaint in Hardin’s case lacks his home address — a detail that’s often included in court documents for other defendants. The judge noted its absence in court when another of Hardin’s attorneys, Justin Keiter, asked that it be excluded from the indictment.
The arraignment involving Hardin on Friday grew testy at times as lawyers on both sides debated who asked the Gulf Coast Violent Offenders Task Force to go to Hardin’s home and try arresting him immediately after the indictment. The attorneys planned to have Hardin turn himself in at court, a process that allows him to be quickly booked into the Harris County Jail and released on bail.
Freeman said she did not call the task force and did not know if anyone at her office did.
Keiter, a former prosecutor who has squared off with District Attorney Kim Ogg’s office in the past over allegations of heightened pretrial publicity, cited Ogg’s support of legislation prioritizing murder cases in the courts as his reasoning for expediting the trial.
The only hitch in the quickly approaching trial date is whether the prosecution can share its evidence quickly enough, his legal team said. The judge has ordered the prosecutors to hand over evidence, including grand jury transcripts, in a timely matter.