Austin Cop-Involved Shooting Came Weeks After Deescalation Call

AUSTIN, TX — When seven law enforcement officers fired at a suspect on Monday — killing him in a fusillade of bullets fired by seven officers at the scene — they did so scarcely a month after the Austin Police Department enacted a new policy requiring officers to seek deescalation efforts before turning to lethal means.

The new policy came by virtue of a revamped edition of the Austin Police Department General Orders, containing new requirements for officers to compel them to first attempt to tamp down volatile situations before using their police-issued weapons — guns, batons, Tasers and the like. It's a lengthy document of 755 pages, its crafting no doubt emanating from hundreds of hours of methodical planning.

Yet it was within minutes of confronting the suspect in Monday's South Austin standoff that officers made the quick decision to fire upon a suspect they say pointed a gun to his own head before ignoring commands to drop the weapon.

The day after the fatal officer-involved shooting, Patch reached out to the APD to inquire if those officers might now face discipline for violating the new rule. Failure to abide by the new rules could lead to disciplinary action from mere reprimand to termination from the force per the revamped police guide.

On Tuesday, a reply to that and other queries went unanswered, a public information officer citing the ongoing nature of the investigation as the reason for the non-disclosure. She did note, however, that not all the officers who fired on the suspect were patrol officers.

"I can tell you that two of the officers are patrol [APD], two are SWAT and three are Narcotics," she volunteered. Their identities weren't disclosed nor was the name of the suspect. "The rest of your questions are part to [sic] the open and ongoing criminal and administrative investigation into this incident," the spokeswoman wrote via email.

Related story: Kidnapping Suspect Shot Dead By Austin Police Officers

The move toward deescalation before turning to lethal means in stopping a suspect came in the wake of a national effort among law enforcement agencies to mitigate violent encounters with suspects.

"The General Orders are designed to assist all employees in accomplishing the Department's mission in a professional and lawful manner," APD Police Chief Brian Manley wrote in an introduction to the revamped guidelines. "Adherence to these orders also helps safeguard employees and the Department against civil litigation and ensures that employees will be protected when their individual actions are scrutinized, especially after a critical incident."

He asked all employees to follow the directives of the General Orders: "All employees will abide by these orders and are responsible for keeping themselves current on the content of this manual," he wrote before signing off with "Stay safe."

In the aftermath of the officer-involved shooting, Manley described the timeline of events that led to the latest officer-involved shooting in Austin. He told reporters at a press briefing that the incident started at around 5:30 p.m., taking place at various locations, initially with a disturbance among roommates along the 3300 block of Parker Lane in South Austin.

A culminating police chase led to the 4900 block of Edge Creek Drive, before the suspect is said to have put a gun to his head. Commands for him to drop the gun went unheeded. Instead, the suspect reportedly then pointed the gun at officers, prompting them to fire their weapons just before 6:40 p.m. The original call came in to police as a suspected kidnapping, but details on that angle weren't discussed in the chief's briefing. The suspect is said to have taken a taxicab before commandeering it prior to being killed by police.

In a subsequent press briefing, Manley told reporters two of the officers involved in the shooting have been with the local force 17 years, another pair have been on the job six years, two of them six years and one for five.

The incident wasn't the first fatal shooting by police this year. On Jan. 26, a suspected burglar was shot dead after allegedly entering a home along the 4500 block of Avenue G in North Austin. Austin police said the suspect shot at them, forcing them to return fire. The suspect, Christopher Eric Giles, 23, of Albuquerque, N.M., was declared dead at the scene.

In recent months, Austin police have meted out potentially lethal means to stop suspects on numerous occasions, incidents often ending with the suspect's death:

• A 25-year-old woman who police said tried running over them before approaching another officer with a knife was shot dead in January 2017. The incident occurred in the 7900 block of Appomattox Drive in South Austin.

• Lawrence Parrish, 31, was hospitalized in April 2017 after police said he fired at them, prompting them to return fire in an East Austin incident along the 6300 block of Parliament Drive. Manley later said at a press briefing that the man appeared to be under the influence of alcohol or drugs before being shot.
• The previous month, in May 2017, police fatally shot a 20-year-old reportedly suicidal after an argument with his girlfriend. During the Notth Austin incident along the 11300 block of Long Winter Dr., the Austin police chief said, the suspect had a gun and was "...waving it around in an erratic fashion." The suspect's own Spanish-speaking mother had called 911 out of concern for her suicidal son who later died at the hands of police. The young man was shot as he moved toward his mom in front of the family home. "He fired in defense of the mother's life," Manley explained in justifying the officer who fired at him with a patrol rifle, although he acknowledged it was unclear if the weapon was pointed at the mother.
• Also in May, police fatally shot a 24-year-old after an initial report of shots fired in the air. The shooting occurred on Trinity Street just past 2 a.m. along the city's popular entertainment corridor along 6th Street.
• In December 2017, Austin police shot and inured a man suspected of stabbing another man in Northwest Austin in the second officer-involved shooting within three days that month. Police responded to the 4000 block of Greenhill Place — west of MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1) and south of U.S. 183 — where they encountered a man holding a knife. “Our officer … is heard yelling multiple times to drop it, drop it, put it down, giving multiple commands,” Manley told reporters at a subsequent press briefing. “The suspect again does not listen and continues to advance toward our officer, at which point our officer fires his weapon at the suspect.”
• That same month, an Austin police officer shot and critically injured a man authorities said had fatally stabbed a woman at a Central Austin apartment complex. The incident at the 5000 block of Lynnwood Street culminated in the suspect being shot by an officer after exhibiting "aggressive acts" while still holding the knife, Manley said at the time.

Many past police shootings are meted out to suspects clutching knives as a method of neutralizing them rather than using mace or other less-severe methods. In June 2016, for example, a machete-wielding 19-year-old was hospitalized after being shot by police in the throes of a suicidal episode in South Austin. The suspect called police himself saying he would be at a campus in the 1000 block of Turtle Creek Boulevard. Former police chief Art Acevedo said the teen likely wanted to be shot by police given his suicidal behavior. Although initial reports suggested the teen had both a gun and a machete, the former was not found at the scene.

Those are just some of the most recent officer-involved shootings, coming with such frequency it's sometimes hard to keep up. Even the city hasn't updated its tabulation provided on the municipal website. In that portal, officer-involved shootings from 2007-16 are listed with the succinct yet grim vital statistics of each entry: Date, location, race/ethnicity/gender of the suspect and whether the suspect lived or died after the police encounter.

According to the city's compilation of officer-involved shootings, there were nine such incidents in 2016, all but one of the suspects men. Two-thirds of those suspects, including the lone woman, were killed. Their ages ranged from 17 to 35, representing a cultural cross-section: Five white, two Hispanic, two black.

To see the city's log of officer-involved shootings from 2007-16, click here. To read the newly revised Austin Police Department General Orders calling for a new focus on deescalating police interactions with suspects, click here.

Patch will update when details on the latest shooting become available. But sometimes, details are hard to come by in the wake of an officer-involved shooting. On May 8, 2017, Patch requested information from police as to the police killing of Landon Nobles on 6th Street — including information on the reportedly numerous mortal wounds sustained by the suspect. Nobles, a 24-year-old African American, was shot by police in the early morning hours of a Sunday in May of last year.

"There is nothing new to release on the Nobles shooting right now," a police spokesperson responded via email. "It is an ongoing investigation." Patch then waited a reasonable amount of time to allow the investigation enough time to conclude, asking for information again a month later on June 8, 2017: "These cases are open active investigations and we are not able to release further information," came the terse reply. "You may contact the court and obtain the affidavits but APD will not be releasing anything further."

Related stories:

Man Fatally Shot By Cop In Central Austin Home Invasion IDed

Man Shot After Firing At Police In East Austin

Austin Police Fatally Shoot 20-Year-Old Distraught After Argument With Girlfriend

Woman Fatally Stabbed, Suspect Shot By Cop In Central Austin

Man Killed During Officer-Involved Shooting In Downtown Austin Entertainment District

Machete-Wielding Teenager Shot By Police In South Austin

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