No charges for cops fired over Chavez killing
A Harris County grand jury on Monday declined to indict former Houston police officers who fatally shot Nicolas Chavez more than 20 times as he suffered a mental crisis in east Houston, according to the Harris County District Attorney’s Office.
Chavez’s family has for more than a year attempted to drum up attention in advance of an indictment and make the 27-yearold father a recognized name in the city. That effort appeared to falter Monday when the grand jury determined that no probable cause existed to charge three officers and a sergeant with a crime.
The Civil Rights Division of the District Attorney’s Office presented evidence over a four-day period, and grand jurors chose not to indict on a range of options that exist in police shootings — from criminally negligent homicide to murder. The issue of defense was also taken into consideration, including self-defense and defense of a third person, District Attorney Kim Ogg said.
“Civil Rights Division prosecutors presented all the evidence to ensure grand jurors were fully informed prior to making a decision,” Ogg said. “Our heart goes out to the Chavez family over the loss of their loved one. We respect the grand jury’s decision.”
Grand jury proceedings are secret, and the evidence presented to grand jurors cannot be disclosed.
A 911 call on April 21, 2020, brought authorities to Denver Harbor, where Chavez was huddled under a streetlight on Gazin Street. A group of officers shot him to death when he picked up a used Taser at the end of a lengthy effort to help him, according to police. He was on his knees.
Chavez was a devoted boyfriend and father who worked a job installing pools. He struggled with mental health issues, but he was trying to “go the right way,” his father, Joaquin Chavez, said in April.
Augie Pinedo, District 18 director of the League of United Latin American Citizens, compared the killing to one by a “firing squad.”
“We feel for the family who has been waiting months and months for justice to be done only to suffer a serious blow to their attempts to obtain justice for their loved one and closure for the family,” Pinedo said. “We can say without equivocation that justice failed today.”
Drawing from a nationwide sea change about police treatment of people of color, George Floyd’s death a month after Chavez’s shooting provided the push his family needed to gain traction on their case. In September, Houston police released footage of the encounter and announced the officers’ firings the same day.
Those officers were Benjamin LeBlanc, Luis Alvarado, Omar Tapia and Patrick Rubio, who thenPolice Chief Art Acevedo said displayed a “not reasonable response” to the situation.
Firings appealed
The Houston Police Officers’ Union confirmed Monday that four people — three officers and a sergeant — were not indicted. A federal lawsuit filed by the Chavez family names a fifth officer, Kevin Nguyen, who was not fired.
“I’m happy the grand jury saw it the way it happened,” union president Doug Griffith said. “These officers acted in the way they were trained, and I’m looking forward to the next in this process, which is arbitration, so they can get their jobs back.”
The four officers appealed their firings.
Houston Police Department policy is the central issue in the Chavez family’s $100 million federal lawsuit, in which they contend police guidelines permitted its officers to shoot Chavez 24 times, killing him. U.S. District Court Judge Lee Rosenthal dismissed the case in July but allowed lawyers to refile weeks later.
Many of Chavez’s family members said they didn’t believe race was the main issue in the shooting — three of the officers involved, like Chavez, were Hispanic. But they said 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.” Acevedo did not name a violated policy upon the officers’ firing over the Chavez killing.
15-minute encounter
During his September 2020 news conference, the former chief used body-camera footage to piece together the 15-minute encounter. Concerned 911 calls had warned officers of a man jumping fences and threatening bystanders, police said at the time.
Finding Chavez under the street light, the officers took out their Tasers and assured Chavez from a distance that they were there to help, Acevedo said. Chavez told police that he was an “MHMRA patient” — an old acronym for the Harris Center mental health clinic — and that he felt “like dying.”
He flailed in a parking lot and stabbed himself with what officers believed was a knife. LeBlanc fired two bean-bag rounds at Chavez, and Alvarado followed with a Taser. Neither appeared to have an effect, and Chavez began walking toward the officers with the metal object — later determined to be rebar.
LeBlanc and Nguyen fired a combined three shots as Chavez approached him and a constable’s deputy. Out of all the rounds fired that night, Acevedo said those were the only ones he found to be reasonable.
Chavez took refuge in a ditch after officers tried to provide medical aid. He eventually came out, rolled onto his knees and faced the officers. He chucked the metal object and picked up a used Taser, which an officer had dropped.
According to earlier reports, LeBlanc told Internal Affairs investigators that Chavez grabbed the Taser, which was missing both cartridges, with a “shooting grip.” LeBlanc feared he would shoot.
LeBlanc, an 11-year veteran of the agency, fired twice, while Tapia and Rubio — both with HPD for a year — each fired six times. Alvarado fired seven shots.
Chavez was rushed to a hospital but did not survive. A toxicology report later found traces of meth and alcohol in Chavez’s body at the time of his death.