Year after fatal HPD shooting, family still awaits indictments
Leantha Chavez nestled a fresh bouquet into a ditch near the spot Houston police officers shot her son upward of 20 times as he suffered a mental crisis.
It had been a hard day for the grieving mother. It had been a hard year — exactly.
Even after the hopefulness that many Americans of color felt on Tuesday with a conviction in George Floyd’s murder, Chavez said she felt mostly angry on Wednesday, the anniversary of her son Nicolas’ death. The four officers who were fired months after the east Houston shooting have not been charged in the case.
“We’re sitting here, and we’re dead in the water,” Chavez said. “There’s no movement, nothing.”
She lit a cigarette under a tent near the Denver Harbor memorial site on Gazin Road, next to a taqueria and facing the East Freeway feeder road. Friends, family and supporters celebrated 27year-old Nicolas Chavez’s life at a cookout by the ditch, but Chavez was exhausted after hustling from news camera to news camera, trying to get the community to listen or care.
She constantly wonders when the Harris County District Attorney’s Office will bring the case before a grand jury. She was happy to see the guilty verdict for Derek Chauvin in Floyd’s death, but
she and others on Wednesday noted that the former Houstonian was killed in May, a month after Chavez. Chauvin received a conviction before the Houston police officers could be indicted, if they will be indicted at all.
More community support is needed in Houston to push the needle for Nicolas, especially among Hispanics, Chavez said.
“District Attorney Kim Ogg has met with the parents and widow of Nicolas Chavez and assured them that our Civil Rights Division prosecutors are conducting a thorough, independent review of his death. Their work continues,” DA’s office spokesman Dane Schiller said in a statement.
“All evidence will be presented to a grand jury, so that our community can determine whether criminal charges are proper. This is the same division that reviews all allegations of excessive force, in-custody deaths, and officer-involved shootings.”
Officers found Chavez on April 21, 2020, huddled under an east Houston streetlight, and at least four shot him to death when he picked up a used Taser at the end of a lengthy effort to help him, according to police.
Floyd’s death played a distinct role in Chavez’s case. Months after the shooting, advocates took the intensifying national movement against police brutality to amplify calls that Houston police release video in the encounter with Chavez. HPD released the footage in September, also announcing the officers’ firings the same day.
It’s not out-of-the-ordinary that Chavez’s case hasn’t gone before a grand jury, as officer indictments are historically difficult to obtain, said John Fullinwider, co-founder of the Texas advocacy group Mothers Against Police Brutality. But Chauvin’s conviction could bring new momentum to Chavez’s family, he said.
“This case is landing in a moment where there is a heightened demand from the public for accountability,” he said.
Many of Chavez’s family members say they don’t believe race was the main issue in the shooting — three of the officers involved, like Chavez, were Hispanic. But instead they say different use-of-force policies as well as methods in dealing with people with mental illnesses could have prevented the ultimate outcome.
HPD updated its use-of-force policy after Floyd’s death, expanding de-escalation techniques to “reduce or minimize the use of physical force.”
Th e Chavez family has made HPD policy the central issue in a recent $100 million federal lawsuit, in which they contend police guidelines permitted its officers to shoot and kill Chavez.
It’s unclear whether any HPD policy allowed for the shooting, as the family alleges. Use-of-force policies from 2015 and 2020 make no reference to the type of scenario described and HPD union leaders have disputed existence of such a policy.
Then-Police Chief Art Acevedo dismissed the four officers who shot Chavez — Benjamin LeBlanc, Luis Alvarado, Omar Tapia and Patrick Rubio — saying they displayed a “not reasonable response” to the situation, but he didn’t reference any specific policy violation. The family’s lawsuit also names a fifth officer, Kevin Nguyen, who was not fired.
The civil case is something to keep the family going, but it’s not enough to quell the pain they feel, said Joaquin Chavez, Nicolas’ father.
Nicolas was a father to a young boy, and he had a girlfriend and an extended family who loved him. He struggled with mental health issues, but he was trying to “go the right way,” Joaquin Chavez said. At the time of his death, he was working a job installing pools.
Nothing can justify the way he died, his father said.
“Aside from any other thing that might have gone on that night, those last 10 seconds of his life shouldn’t have happened,” he said, referring to the crisis that led police to the scene.
Concerned 911 calls had warned officers of a man jumping fences and threatening bystanders, police said at the time. The officers said Chavez charged at them with a pointy object, later identified to be a piece of rebar. They fired a Taser and beanbag projectiles at him, police said, but Chavez picked up an officer’s already used Taser and pointed it at them. Then came the barrage of bullets.
Chavez was among nine people — all men of color — killed by Houston police officers in 2020, six of whom died during a monthlong stretch from April to May.
While frustrated with the wait, Leantha Chavez said she remains hopeful for action in the criminal courts.
She watches TV every day to see if anything comes on the news about Nicolas. So far, she said she has heard nothing.
“I want policy,” she said. “I want the street named after him. And I don’t want this community to forget it was wrong what they did.”