Teen shot by officer arrested on unrelated theft charge

Erik Cantu, the teenager whose shooting by a San Antonio police officer last year sparked a nationwide furor and led to criminal charges against the officer, has been arrested on an unrelated charge of theft.

Cantu, now 18, and a teenage girl are accused of stealing a car charger, an air freshener and other items from a Walmart Supercenter on the North Side.

Cantu was arrested June 28 on a misdemeanor charge of theft of items worth between $100 and $750, Bexar County court records show. He was released the next day after posting $800 bond. He is scheduled to be arraigned on July 31.

Emily Proulx, also 18, was arrested the same day on the same charge, records show. She was in Cantu’s car last Oct. 2 when he was shot and critically injured by a San Antonio Police Department officer.

Cantu and Proulx were arrested on the theft charges after police were sent to a Walmart Supercenter in the 8500 block of Jones Maltsberger

Road in response to a report that items had been stolen from the store’s automotive section, according to KSAT, which was first to report the arrest of the two teens.

Last year, Cantu spent weeks on a ventilator, fighting for his life, and months in the hospital after he was shot by then-SAPD officer James Brennand.

On the night of Oct. 2, Cantu was in a McDonald’s parking lot in the 11700 block of Blanco Road, eating a hamburger in his car, when Brennand approached.

The officer was at the McDonald’s in response to an unrelated disturbance when he saw Cantu’s 2008 BMW sedan and recognized it as the same one that had eluded him during an attempted traffic stop the night before. Brennand suspected the car was stolen, although it wasn’t.

Brennand opened Cantu’s driver-side door and demanded that the teenager step out. Cantu put the car in reverse, backed up slowly and drove away.

The officer fired repeatedly at the car, hitting Cantu in the liver, diaphragm, bicep, chest and stomach. One bullet lodged near his heart.

Proulx, who was in the car, was not injured.

Brennand, then 27, was fired within days and was later charged with aggravated assault by a public servant, a first-degree felony. He had been on the force seven months and was still on probationary status.

Brennand fired at least 10 shots at the fleeing vehicle even though he was “clearly not in danger of death or serious bodily injury,” according to an affidavit filed in support of his arrest.

Proulx

Cantu