Braziel family demands evidence
Records requests in shooting death by police have gone unheeded
The family of a 38-yearold man fatally shot last year by two Houston police officers demanded Wednesday that his autopsy and other investigative material be turned over to them.
At a press conference in front of the Harris County Criminal Courthouse, widow Nikki Braziel said she wants to know what grand jurors were told before they decided last week to clear the two officers of any wrongdoing in the death of Alva Braziel.
“We are demanding justice,” she said. “We are demanding that all my husband’s paperwork be released to me.”
Flanked by a dozen protesters, Nikki Braziel and others said they want to see all the evidence in the July 9, 2016, shooting, including a toxicology report that would show whether Alva Braziel had PCP or other drugs in his system.
The Houston Chronicle requested a copy of the autopsy and toxicology reports on Aug. 9, 2016, one month after the shooting. The request was denied — and affirmed by the Texas Attorney General’s Office — because the Harris County District Attorney’s Office indicated there was a pending criminal investigation, one of several discretionary exceptions to the Texas Open Records Act.
The Chronicle made a second request Friday after prosecutors indicated the officers would not be charged. The district attorney’s office and the county attorney’s office both agreed Wednesday that the records can now be released, but the Harris County medical examiner’s still had not released them by the end of business.
Alva Braziel was killed about 12:40 a.m. as he was waving a gun in the middle of Cullen Boulevard.
The circumstances surrounding the shooting led Mayor Sylvester Turner
to order the release of 18 minutes of video footage collected from nearby surveillance cameras and the officers’ body cameras.
The surveillance video captured the incident from afar. It was enlarged to show Braziel holding his hands in the air as the police vehicle rolls up and stops.
That, Nikki Braziel, means he was not pointing the gun at the officers.
“Hands up! Don’t shoot!” she and the other protesters chanted Wednesday.
The police body cameras were not turned on until after the shooting, but showed the officers approaching Braziel prone on the street. The video shows a gun still clinched in his hand, but he is not conscious. The officers can be heard telling another officer that they thought he was trying to wave them down until he pointed a gun at them.
Last week’s decision by a Harris County grand jury to not indict the officers was the second time the case had gone before grand jurors. The first time, the family said they were not given an opportunity to tell the grand jury their side of the story.
The family also complained Wednesday that grand jury proceedings are secret, so they do not know what was said. They said the law should be changed to be more transparent.