Houston, Texas – Officers in Fatal Alva Braziel Shooting are No-Billed by a Harris County Grand Jury
Two police officers from the Houston, Texas, Police Department (HPD) were allegedly involved in the highly publicized and controversial shooting of Alva Braziel in the summer of 2016. The shooting occurred around the same time there was a spate of high-profile police-involved shootings across the U.S. as well as the deadly ambush that took the lives of five Dallas police officers. On Thursday, June 29, 2017, a grand jury decision was announced in the Braziel case. The members of the grand jury did not indict the Houston officers who allegedly fired the deadly shots. What this means is that the police officers are effectively cleared of any wrongdoing in the alleged shooting.
On the same day the grand jury decision was announced, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner released videos showing the police encounter with Braziel, along with video of the shooting itself. The footage allegedly clearly shows that 38-year-old Braziel still had a gun in his hand after being allegedly shot. This helped to discount the fears that many had that he was another unarmed black man gunned down by police, which is the reason for many protests in the country organized by the Black Lives Matter movement.
Nikki Braziel, widow of the deceased, expressed her opinion that the decision of the grand jury was unfair and that the police officers should have been charged on anything, including manslaughter or capital murder.
Mayor Turner found the Braziel shooting to be a public relations nightmare. Two weeks after the alleged shooting, Turner released 18 minutes of video footage that was more from a distance than the more recently released videos. The distant videos also included enlarged footage showing that Braziel had his hands in the air when law enforcement vehicles arrived at the scene. Turner said his reason for releasing the video was to show that an unarmed black man had not been shot by HPD in this case.
The officer’s body cameras did not start recording until after the alleged shooting. Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo is attempting to acquire new body cameras for HPD that turn on automatically whenever officers step from their vehicles.
As with every post on this website, we are only providing information in this post and do not make any allegation or assertion that anyone acted inappropriately or engaged in misconduct.
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