Three SAPD officers on trial in wrong suspect’s arrest

Three San Antonio police officers accused in a civil lawsuit of using excessive force when they detained the wrong man nearly 10 years ago are on trial this week in federal court.

An attorney for plaintiff Rogelio “Roger” Carlos III told jurors that an undercover officer identified only as Detective John Doe and officers Carlos Chavez and Virgilio Gonzalez beat Carlos, and that one of the officers pressed his knee to his head with his full weight — before they realized he wasn’t the one they were after.

Carlos is wheelchair-bound, left paralyzed by a spinal surgery to alleviate pain stemming from the May 2014 incident. However, Carlos is barred by prior rulings in the case from telling jurors the officers caused the injuries that led to the procedure.

His lead lawyer, Philip G. Bernal, said the encounter with the officers left Carlos with scrapes and scratches on his face, hands and arms, and bruises to his face and neck. Photos of his swollen and bloodied face were shown to jurors in the civil trial before U.S. District Judge Fred Biery.

Carlos alleges officers violated his constitutional protection against unreasonable search and seizure and his due process rights, and is seeking unspecified damages.

His original lawsuit included allegations that the beating led him to have surgery to relieve lingering pain.

Carlos’ claims of negligence against a member of his medical team were dismissed by Biery in 2020 on the recommendation of U.S. Magistrate Richard Farrer. The judges also dismissed Carlos’ claims that the officers had subjected him to an unlawful arrest.

That leaves only Carlos’ claims that the officers used excessive force when they were pursing a suspect and mistakenly targeted him. He alleges they went far beyond what’s acceptable and legal.

“They beat me for no reason. Every time they hit me it would be like a white flash,” Carlos told jurors. “They were hitting me like Mike Tyson.”

Court records show that after Carlos filed a complaint with the San Antonio Police Department, Chief William Mcmanus initially considered giving the officers a 15-day suspension for violating the department’s use of force policy. But Mcmanus later shortened it to a five-day suspension and ordered them to undergo additional training.

The records show no disciplinary action for the officers targeting the wrong person.

Wrong man

The incident occurred on May 20, 2014 — before San Antonio police were required to wear body cameras.

Carlos, an American Airlines employee at the time, was off work and dressed in a white Tshirt, dark blue shorts and tennis shoes. Before picking up his children from school, he was examining construction work on a pediatric clinic his then-wife, a nurse practitioner, and her sister were having built near Westover Hills and Rogers Road on the far West Side.

While Carlos was at the site, and unknown to him, the multiagency High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area task force sought help from San Antonio SWAT officers to arrest a violent offender wanted on a warrant for felony family assault.

Doe called SWAT officer James Ybarra, who was having lunch with other team members — including Gonzalez and Chavez — at Alamo Cafe on Interstate 10. He gave Ybarra some information about a drug investigation involving the suspect.

Ybarra, while in his marked patrol car, got behind the suspect’s gold Toyota Camry along Texas 151 and tried to pull him over. The suspect fled, and Ybarra pursued him on Texas 151 and an access road alongside the highway.

Descriptions of the suspect and the vehicle were transmitted over police radio, according to dash-cam video from Ybarra’s patrol car, which was played for the jury.

The suspect abandoned the Camry in a parking lot behind Rudy’s Barbecue on Westover Hills Boulevard and fled into the wooded area surrounding the restaurant. Ybarra is heard telling officers over the radio that the suspect was wearing a white T-shirt and blue jeans.

Doe testified on Wednesday that he only heard the white Tshirt portion because the radio traffic was garbled.

Though Carlos heard the sirens, he testified that he didn’t think much of it because there was a fire station and a hospital nearby.

Carlos said he then saw an unmarked maroon truck speed toward him, stopping several feet away. The driver, Detective Doe, got out and shouted at Carlos, “Get on the ground!”

“At that point I was confused. I put my hands in front of me and I started crouching down,” Carlos said. “I heard to my left, ‘Get on the ground! ‘ I saw two other officers. And as I was looking to the left, I was hit by Detective Doe.”

Gonzalez and Chavez also approached Carlos.

‘It dazed me’

“I was hit and I just went down to the ground. It dazed me,” he said. “At that point, they just started hitting me. When I went down, I just put my hands to the side. They were punching me in the face. ‘Where’s the gun? ‘ I said, ‘I don’t have a gun. This is my property. What’s going on? ‘”

Carlos testified that one of the officers kicked him in the face and that Gonzalez put his knee on his head with his full weight.

As Carlos tried to explain that his wife and her sister owned the property, Doe told him to “shut the (expletive) up” and elbowed him on the side of the head multiple times, Carlos said. The officers handcuffed him and held him for several minutes before realizing that the suspect they were after had been caught by officers close to where he ditched his getaway car.

Carlos said Doe wasn’t in uniform, and he didn’t recall Doe saying he was an officer. But Doe claimed during his testimony that his police badge was hanging from a lanyard around his neck.

Another witness testifies

A witness, construction superintendent David Byrd, testified that he heard metal — possibly a vehicle’s transmission or frame — hitting the curb as the truck sped toward Carlos. Byrd jumped into his pickup and followed the maroon truck.

“Mr. Carlos was standing there. He wasn’t running. He wasn’t being aggressive,” said Byrd, whose recorded testimony was played for jurors. “And then this officer, or whoever he was, he hit this guy. He hit Mr. Carlos in the back and dropped him to the ground. And you know, he hit him like a linebacker hitting a quarterback on a free shot.”

“I just saw him hit Mr. Carlos as hard as he could and drop him to the ground, and then the other officer jumped on top of him, too,” he said.

Byrd also demonstrated how Carlos crouched with his hands in front of him before Doe struck him.

But Doe disputed that Carlos had his hands in front of him. He also claimed Carlos wasn’t crouching.

“No, he was standing straight up,” Doe testified. “He wasn’t going to the ground.”

Doe also said Carlos held his hands close to his waist, and that he saw a black object in Carlos’s hand.

Testimony established Carlos did not have a gun. He was holding a black iphone, which he’d been using to take pictures of the construction site.

In opening arguments, one of the lawyers defending the officers, Clarissa M. Rodriguez, blamed Carlos for what happened to him. She argued that Carlos didn’t comply with the officers’ orders because he began explaining instead of immediately lowering himself to the ground.

“All suspects are going to try to explain away,” Rodriguez said.

She told jurors to ignore the fact that the officers went after the wrong guy, and to focus solely on whether they used excessive force.

Rodriguez said the officers “acted consistent with their training to gain compliance as quick as they can.”

“They had to take him down,” she said. “Taken altogether, the totality of the circumstances, that’s what should be considered. Even if it was a mistake, they used measured and reasonable actions, and that’s the constitutional standard.”

She also said the officers disputed the findings of the internal investigation, but agreed to a five-day suspension to keep their jobs.

“They needed to keep their careers, but they never agreed that they used excessive force,” she argued. “If you do find that their actions were too much, we hope you find (they’re entitled to) qualified immunity. They acted the way any reasonable police officer in their situation would.”

Qualified immunity is a legal principle shielding officers from liability. Critics have called for qualified immunity to be eliminated, arguing it gives officers too much leeway.

On Tuesday, the judge dismissed one of the 10 jurors after opening arguments because she said she did not “feel safe” and didn’t think she could sit through the trial.

No further explanation was given.