3 officers indicted in 2 excessive-force cases
Are charged in stun gun incident; another is accused in case involving prostitute.
A Travis County grand jury has indicted an Austin police patrol officer and two SWAT team members in connection with two unrelated excessive-force cases, including one in which prosecutors say police unjustifiably used a Taser stun gun on a man.
Officer Robert Pfaff, who has been with the Austin Police Department for about 11 years, was charged with aggravated perjury, assault with bodily injury, abuse of official capacity and official oppression in his response to a downtown shooting in which he used his stun gun on a man.
Officer Donald Petraitis, who was with him, was charged with assault bodily injury, abuse of official capacity and official oppression.
In a separate case, grand jurors indicted officer Nathaniel Stallings on charges of assault with bodily injury involving official misconduct and abuse of official capacity for an Oct. 6 incident.
Pfaff ’s charge of aggravated perjury is a third-degree felony punishable with two to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000. All the remaining charges
against the officers are Class A misdemeanors punishable with a maximum fine of $4,000 and a jail term of up to one year.
The indictments, obtained by the American-Statesman and KVUE-TV on Thursday, mark the second and third times that District Attorney Margaret Moore and a civil rights unit she put in place a year ago have sought indictments against officers in cases that did not involve lethal force. They follow years of complaints by some in the community that prosecutors have not vigorously pursued criminal charges against some officers.
According to officials and the officers’ attorneys, the most recent incident involved a Feb. 16 shooting near Red River and 12th streets.
Pfaff and Petraitis, who were nearby, responded to the scene, where a group of people was congregated near a person with a gunshot wound, according to police officials and the officers’ attorneys.
They said that police, not knowing if any of the bystanders were armed or involved in the shooting, ordered everyone to drop to the ground. One man walked toward a wooded area, and the officers ordered him to stop and get down.
At one point, the officers used a Taser on the man, officials said. Interim Police Chief Brian Manley, citing ongoing investigations, did not provide specific details on what happened.
Manley said the officers were indicted because their written reports of the incident did not match up with what was captured on the officers’ body-worn cameras.
“Specifically, the individual was described in the report as on his feet and walking away from the officers, and it is clear on the video that that is not what happened in this instant,” he said.
According to the officers’ attorneys, Pfaff and Petraitis used a stun gun on the man because they thought he posed a safety risk.
“The district attorney’s office believes the Taser deployment was a criminal act and believes a discrepancy exists between an officer’s body camera footage of the incident and the independent recollections of officers,” attorneys Ken Ervin and Doug O’Connell said. “We believe this was an unfortunate rush to judgment and may, ultimately, have a chilling and negative impact on police officers in our city and county who are required to make split-second decisions in high-stress situations to keep us safe.”
Stallings was indicted for the Oct. 6 incident in which he and another officer were investigating a prostitution case, Manley said.
“During this incident, the officers arrested an African-American female, and during this arrest force was used,” he said.
Manley did not describe the actions Stallings is accused of, but said they did not involve the use of a weapon.
Stallings’ attorneys could not be reached for comment.
Last year, in Moore’s civil rights unit’s first case, prosecutors sought an indictment against a former Austin school district police officer for his use of force against a middle school student. The case is set for trial later this year.
Austin police supervisors uncovered the latest incidents as part of a review process put in place after officer Bryan Richter’s violent arrest of teacher Breaion King in 2015.
In that incident, Richter’s actions were not discovered by the Police Department’s brass until a state-imposed time window on when to issue disciplinary sanctions had expired. That case prompted the department to adopt a new system for how use-of-force cases must be reviewed.
“We have policies that allow our officers to use force when necessary to effect an arrest or to protect themselves or others,” Manley said, but in the cases revealed Thursday, “the supervisors who reviewed them had concerns and forwarded them up the chain, and they resulted in these investigations and ultimately with these indictments.”
Police Department officials turned the cases over to prosecutors for their review, Moore said. Austin police have an ongoing internal affairs investigation in both incidents.
“These prosecutions were possible because I believe the review process that was put in place by APD is working as far as identifying situations that need to be reviewed and referring them to us for investigation,” Moore said. “It is working and that’s important.”
Austin police union President Ken Casaday said the union isn’t privy to videos of either incident or the officers’ reports. Petraitis, Pfaff and Stallings have all had successful careers with the department, and he would be surprised if the accusations were accurate, Casaday said.
“However, if these allegations are proven to be correct, they are not consistent with the department’s values, the service we provide daily or the expectation of our community,” he said.