Arlington officer not indicted in teen’s shooting

A Tarrant County grand jury declined Wednesday to indict an Arlington police officer who was fired after fatally shooting a teen who was high on drugs and had broken into a car dealership.

Christian Taylor, 19, a Mansfield Summit High graduate who played football at Angelo State University, was shot four times by rookie officer Brad Miller, 49, on Aug. 7.

The shooting of Taylor, who was unarmed, reverberated nationwide as police departments and communities grappled with repeated stories about young black men dying after fatal encounters with police officers. Taylor’s death came two days before the one-year anniversary of the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, an incident that galvanized the “Black Lives Matter” movement.

Attorney Mike Heiskell, who has been assisting Taylor’s family since the fatal shooting, said the teen’s parents are distraught and disappointed and asked for privacy.

“We were hoping and praying for (Miller) to be held accountable in criminal court for the unprincipled way he conducted himself, which led him to fire his Glock 9mm into an unarmed Christian four separate times,” Heiskell said. “Those hopes have been dashed.”

Attorney John Snider, who represented Miller, said he wanted to thank the members of the grand jury for their service and for taking the time to consider all the facts in the case.

“Too often, police officers’ decisions are judged without proper consideration of the tense and dangerous situations they face,” Snider said. “Brad Miller, like many other police officers, was forced to make a split-second decision to protect his life and the lives of his fellow officers. The grand jury made the right decision.”

Arlington police declined to comment.

Taylor had traces of marijuana and a synthetic psychedelic drug in his system after his death. The synthetic drug, 25I-NBOMe — called “NBomb” — is supposed to mimic the effects of LSD. The Arlington teen had 0.76 nanogram of the drug per milliliter of blood in his system at the time of his death, according to the medical examiner. A nanogram is a billionth of a gram.

Heiskell said he hopes to sit down with Taylor’s family soon and explore options, which include the filing of a civil lawsuit. Findings that Taylor was under the influence of marijuana laced with a synthetic drug and was acting erratically provides no excuse for a law enforcement officer to take his life, Heiskell said.