Officer Christopher Gray Is Suspended 70 Days-Pic

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Officer Christopher Gray

04/26/2006 - An Austin police officer acquitted last month in the beating of a handcuffed suspect was suspended for 70 days Wednesday for using excessive force against the man and "bringing discredit upon the department."

Officer Christopher Gray, 28, who agreed not to appeal the suspension, will begin serving the unpaid suspension today, said his attorney, Tom Stribling. He'll be allowed to return to work July 5.

"I think the discipline is rather severe, but I think that we both understand that this being a very high-profile case, it is one of those things," Stribling said. "He is willing to accept and try to learn from the situation and move forward."

Amber Vazquez Bode, the attorney for 25-year-old Ramon Hernandez, whose struggle with officers Sept. 21 was captured in part on patrol car videotape, said she is disappointed by the suspension and thinks Gray should have been fired.

"It doesn't seem very severe," Vazquez Bode said. "I think Austin is still waiting on real accountability from APD."

A 90-day suspension is the most severe punishment allowed under state civil service law short of termination.

Gray was one of three officers involved in the arrest of Hernandez, who had left the scene of a minor traffic accident in North Austin. Officers said Hernandez resisted arrest and reached for one of the officer's guns.

Hernandez testified during the trial of Gray and former officer William Heilman that Heilman shocked him with a Taser stun gun without warning and that he reached for Heilman's gun because he was afraid he'd be shot.

After the officers handcuffed Hernandez and forced him to the ground, Heilman used his Taser on Hernandez, and Gray punched him 14 times in the lower back and kidney area.

The end of the struggle was caught on a patrol car camera.

A Travis County jury last month found Gray and Heilman, who quit the force after the incident, not guilty of misdemeanor official oppression.

In a disciplinary memo that he signed Wednesday, Chief Stan Knee said, "After reviewing the evidence, I have determined the amount of force used by Officer Gray was excessive."

The memo said a witness and another officer on the scene also thought Gray used too much force.

Knee said in the memo that he considered Gray's record in making his decision. He said Gray has been a well-respected field training officer and has not had a sustained complaint against him in seven years as an Austin police officer.

"During his disciplinary review board, Officer Gray acknowledged that he could have and should have handled the situation differently and would do so when confronted with a similar situation in the future," Knee wrote in the memo.

Gray must also complete a counseling course and attend additional use-of-force training, according to the memo.

Gray is the first officer to be disciplined for his actions during the incident.

An official oppression charge is still pending against officer Joel Follmer, who was shown on the patrol video punching Hernandez's legs, and he wouldn't face internal discipline until his criminal case is complete.

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If it wasn't for police chief Stan Knee, the crooked cops, the dirty police union and the corrupt F.B.I., Austin Texas would be a great city to live in.

[KC]

Officer Joel Follmer

12/31/2005 - A Travis County grand jury indicted two Austin police officers and a former officer Friday, accusing them of beating a handcuffed suspect and using their Taser stun guns on him after a minor traffic accident in September.

Officer Joel Follmer, officer Christopher Gray and officer William Heilman punched 25-year-old Ramon Hernandez multiple times on the legs and back and shocked him at least once after he was facedown and in handcuffs, police officials said.

Hernandez, a quality-control employee for a tech company, suffered a large gash above his eye, several bruises on his body and several weeks of back pain, said his lawyer, Amber Vazquez Bode.

"He was unrecognizable," she said.

Follmer, who joined the force in July, and Gray, a six-year veteran who was training the rookie, have been suspended without pay. Heilman, who had been with the department for four years and was involved in an on-duty shooting earlier this year, resigned Dec. 2. Each faces up to a year in jail if convicted of official oppression, a Class A misdemeanor.

Prosecutors said other charges are possible but declined to elaborate.

"I'm very disappointed we would have a situation like this happen," Assistant Police Chief Robert Dahlstrom said Friday. "I'm sad for the officers, sad for the department and sad for the victim."

Terry Keel, an attorney and state representative from Austin who is representing Follmer, Gray and Heilman, said he hopes for a speedy trial and expects all three to be exonerated.

"The indictments of these officers represent a terrible injustice," he said. "These officers acted honorably and with great courage. . . . They fought for their lives to subdue a criminal suspect."

Department leaders said the indictments came after a routine review of the Sept. 21 incident in the 8200 block of Burnet Road in North Austin. Part of the incident was recorded by patrol car cameras.

The review led supervisors to think the officers might have violated department policy and the law, so they sent the information to the Travis County district attorney's office. They also began an internal affairs investigation, which is not complete.

Authorities have declined to release copies of the videos, citing the investigation.

According to an affidavit, which is based on the officers' statements, Hernandez left an accident scene, and Heilman found him minutes later about a block away on Buell Avenue, kneeling with his head on the ground. The affidavit said Hernandez refused to stand up, and a struggle ensued. Heilman said Hernandez hit him several times and tried to take his gun.

Dahlstrom said Heilman called for backup and that Follmer and Gray, who were riding in the same patrol car, were the first to arrive.

Dahlstrom said the officers eventually handcuffed Hernandez and placed him facedown on the ground. At this point, they had moved in range of the patrol car camera.

Dahlstrom said Gray and Follmer punched Hernandez several times — Gray hit him in the back, and Follmer struck his legs — and that Heilman shocked Hernandez with his Taser. Gray also used his Taser during the incident, but Dahlstrom said he did not know whether Hernandez was in handcuffs at that point.

Department policy prohibits officers from shocking handcuffed suspects.

Police took Hernandez to Brackenridge Hospital and later to the Travis County Jail, where they charged him with attempting to take a police officer's weapon and assault on a public servant — both felonies — and two misdemeanor charges of failure to stop and render aid and evading detention.

The grand jury declined Friday to indict Hernandez on the felony charges. The misdemeanor charges are pending.

Keel, a former prosecutor and Travis County sheriff, said Hernandez "aggressively charged" toward Heilman, who used his Taser twice to try to subdue him.

Keel, who has not seen the videotapes from the patrol cars, said that during the struggle, Heilman also used a baton to hit Hernandez "as hard as he could" and that Hernandez continued fighting.

"The suspect told officer Heilman, 'You're going to have to kill me,' pulled out the Taser probes and violently attacked officer Heilman," Keel said. "Both went to the ground in a violent and protracted struggle."

"The three officers had trouble controlling him even after leg restraints were applied," Keel said. "All use of force by the officers was necessary to protect themselves and subdue the suspect."

Keel said prosecutors handling the case have misinter- preted state laws concerning officers' use of force, which he said allows them to use any force necessary to repel aggression. Keel also said the officers were prevented from fully explaining themselves to grand jurors.

Assistant Travis County District Attorney Patty Robertson said, "We are limited in what we can say after indictment and prior to trial."

Keel said Hernandez told the officers and paramedics that he was high on "ice" — a form of methamphetamine. Vazquez Bode, Hernandez's lawyer, said he tested negative for drugs immediately after the incident.

She said Hernandez rear-ended a woman's car after reaching for his cell phone to call his wife and left the accident scene to collect his thoughts and pray.

Vazquez Bode described Hernandez as "a devout Christian who doesn't drink, smoke or use drugs." She said Hernandez has no criminal record and that Heilman attacked Hernandez, who she said is about 5 feet, 5 inches tall and weighs about 125 pounds, without provocation.

"Any baseless attacks on my client's character by the criminal defense attorney for the officers will be shown to have no merit," she said. "It's going to be extremely clear what happened in this process and how victimized my client was."

Austin Police Association President Mike Sheffield was more reserved about his opinion.

"We haven't seen the evidence," he said. "The grand jury has, and they made the decision to move this forward."

According to department records, Gray and Heilman each have filed 20 use-of-force reports during their tenures. Follmer, a former Travis County probation officer, has filed one in his five months with the department.

Details of those incidents were not available Friday. A typical officer filed about seven use-of-force reports from 1998 to 2003.

Heilman had been on restricted duty since October, when he shot a man inside a North Austin house after the man refused to take his hands out of his pockets and repeatedly told officers to "shoot." The man, who was found to have two knives, survived the gunshot wound to his cheek.

Heilman was not indicted in that case.

[KC]

Officers Cleared in Hernandez Beating Trial

04/07/2006 - After less than two hours of deliberation, a six-member Travis Co. jury on March 31 returned with not-guilty verdicts against two APD officers charged with "official oppression" in connection with the September arrest of 25-year-old Ramon Hernandez. Under that verdict, APD Officer Christopher Michael Gray, a six-year APD veteran; and former officer William Bradley Heilman (who resigned on Oct. 31, after four years with the department) were cleared of the Class A misdemeanor charge that carries a potential punishment of up to one year in state jail and/or up to a $4,000 fine. (A third officer, rookie Joel Ellis Follmer, was also indicted in the case, but has yet to be tried.)

The three officers were indicted in December in connection with the Sept. 21 arrest of Hernandez after he fled from the scene of a traffic accident on Burnet Road in North Austin. After officers arrived at the scene of the collision, Hernandez took off on foot; Heilman, who was in route to the accident, found Hernandez near a transmission shop on Buell Avenue and tried to arrest him, but, according to APD, Hernandez resisted and tried to struggle free. Heilman reportedly tried to subdue Hernandez with his Taser, but that didn't work. According to APD, when Follmer and Gray arrived on the scene, "it appeared to them" that Hernandez was trying to take Heilman's gun, and it took all three officers to get Hernandez under control and into handcuffs.

Hernandez testified that he never tried to take Heilman's gun; instead, he said that as the force used against him continued to escalate, he tried to place his hand of the grip of Heilman's pistol to keep Heilman from drawing the weapon and firing at him. That explanation was disputed by employees of the transmission shop, who told the court they saw Hernandez grabbing for Heilman's weapon – testimony that appeared to have a powerful effect on the jurors, court watchers told the Chronicle.

But the altercation didn't end there. Indeed, while cuffed, Hernandez lurched free of the officers again, landing on the ground a few feet away and, for the first time during the incident, within the range of Heilman's in-car video camera, which recorded the three officers planted on top of Hernandez (one with a foot on his shoulder, one pinning his legs, and one straddled on the small of his back), who was lying on his stomach, cuffed, face down on a fire-ant mound. The video is startling: in total, Gray delivers 14 punches to Hernandez's kidney area while Follmer straddles Hernandez, apparently delivering at least one additional drive-stun Taser shot to Hernandez's legs and Heilman stands with his boot on Hernandez's shoulder, keeping Hernandez pressed into the dirt – a use-of-force combination that, among other things, appears to violate APD policy on Taser use.

Prosecutors argued that the video depicted three out-of-control officers wielding far more force than necessary to arrest Hernandez; defense attorney Terry Keel argued that the force was within reason, given that Heilman and Gray were in a "death struggle" against an out-of-control Hernandez. After a four-day trial, the jury in District Judge Jon Wisser's courtroom apparently agreed with Keel and declined to find Heilman and Gray guilty. The state, juror Joel Ellingsworth told the Statesman, simply didn't prove the elements required to convict on a charge of official oppression. (Such a charge includes that, while "acting under color" of office, the officers intentionally subjected Hernandez to "mistreatment" they knew was unlawful, thereby violating Hernandez's civil rights.) "Anybody who would just see that video without any knowledge of the case would say that looks bad," Ellingsworth told the Statesman. "I agree it looks bad. They weren't asking us if it looks bad."

Nonetheless, the trial has raised more questions about APD training and techniques. One officer, Joel Stinson, who has taught use-of-force at the APD academy, called the officers' techniques "disgusting," while defense witnesses – namely Officer John Coffey (who was put through the public wringer after he shot and killed Sophia King in 2002) and former APD academy trainer Joe Alvarado (who contracted with the city to teach defensive tactics) – echoed Keel's death-struggle defense to argue that the force was within reason. What is "reasonable" under those standards, and what is in fact within policy will be considered in the weeks to come, as APD's Internal Affairs detectives undertake their administrative inquiry into the incident. Among the issues likely to be studied is whether the officers, when arresting Hernandez, did indeed violate the department's policy on use of force. For example, according to the March 29, 2005, use-of-force policy memorandum, officers are forbidden from using a Taser once a suspect is in handcuffs; moreover, once a Taser has been used, the policy requires police to place a person in an upright position, in order "to avoid the potential of positional asphyxia." In Hernandez's case, it appears the officers failed to comply with either mandate. Additionally, the policy forbids police from using a Taser against a suspect "fleeing from officers for a misdemeanor or non-violent offense" unless the suspect is armed and "poses an immediate threat" to officers or others, neither of which occurred in this incident.

Officers Gray and Follmer had been suspended without pay, pending the outcome of their criminal trials; Gray will now be placed on restricted duty, with pay, pending the outcome of the IA investigation and disciplinary review board, headed by Chief Stan Knee.

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Oppression charges dropped against officer

05/12/2006 - An Austin police officer will no longer face charges of Official Oppression related to the beating of a suspect.

Officer Joel Follmer was one of three APD officers charged in the beating of Ramon Hernandez in September 2005. Police say Hernandez was resisting arrest.

Officers Christopher Gray and William Heilman were tried for the crime and acquitted in March.

Heilman has since left the police force and Gray was suspended for 70 days based on the department's internal review.

Based on the facts shown at their criminal trial, Follmer was found "least at fault" for the use of unnecessary force.

Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle said the case was dismissed in the interest of fairness.

Follmer has been placed on restricted duty with pay until Internal Affairs finishes its investigation.

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Acting Police Chief Cathy Ellison is already playing favorites.


02.06.2006 - ACTING POLICE CHIEF CATHY ELLISON — in her first week on the job — fired rookie officer Joel Follmer on Thursday for his role in the beating of a handcuffed suspect last year.

Prosecutors had dropped criminal charges against Follmer, 38, after two other officers involved in the incident were acquitted by a jury.

Ellison fired Follmer because she believed that he used excessive force during the struggle with Ramon Hernandez in September 2005,said Follmer's lawyer, Tom Stribling. Hernandez had fled the scene of a North Austin traffic wreck before police found him on a nearby street and tried to arrest him.

Ellison declined to comment about her decision Thursday, which she made after a disciplinary review board met for nearly two hours Thursday at police headquarters.

Ellison sent a short letter to Follmer on Thursday telling him that he was terminated "due to your failure to meet the standards expected of a probationary officer." The letter did not offer any more details.

A detailed disciplinary memo was not written because they are not required for rookies still on probation.

Because Follmer was a rookie when the incident happened, he cannot appeal the firing, Stribling said.

Stribling said the firing was unfair because one of the police officers accused in the beating, officer Christopher Gray, was suspended by then-Police Chief Stan Knee for 70 days in April.

"I think that Joel Follmer's conduct was significantly less egregious" than Gray's, Stribling said. "It seems to be inconsistent for officer Gray to have retained his job and for Joel Follmer not to."

The other police officer who was involved, William Heilman, left the department shortly after the incident.

City Manager Toby Futrell could not be reached for comment Thursday because she was out of town.

Follmer had no prior disciplinary reports taken against him and no commendations as a rookie, according to city records. He also had no prior evaluations, according to the records.

Austin Police Association President Mike Sheffield said he was disappointed and frustrated by Ellison's decision.

"He deserved a chance to continue on probation," Sheffield said.

Follmer had graduated from the academy and had been working on the streets for two months when the incident happened, Sheffield said. Gray was Follmer's training officer, Sheffield said.

"Follmer literally got caught in this incident with his training officer," Sheffield said. "There was nothing to indicate (before the incident) that somehow he was a problem officer."

Sheffield said it was too early to tell whether Ellison was sending a message with the Follmer firing.

"This basically began before she became the acting chief," Sheffield said.

When police tried to arrest Hernandez in September 2005, witnesses said, Heilman used his Taser on Hernandez several times but Hernandez continued to struggle. During the struggle, Hernandez reached for Heilman's gun. He testified that he was suffering a nervous breakdown and was afraid that the officer was going to shoot him.

Part of the struggle was caught on a patrol car video camera.

With Hernandez handcuffed and facedown, Follmer was seen delivering a series of light punches to Hernandez's legs. Meanwhile, Gray punched Hernandez in the back, and Heilman stood on Hernandez near his head. The officers said the force was necessary to subdue him.

A grand jury indicted the three officers on official oppression charges last year; earlier this year a jury found Gray and Heilman not guilty. Prosecutors dropped the charges against Follmer last month, saying he was the least culpable of the three officers.

Follmer is the second officer fired in a month. Knee fired Cpl. Richard Munoz on May 3 after Munoz was accused of choking a 15-year-old handcuffed boy. Munoz also was accused of not filing a child abuse report properly, which gave the attacker time to assault someone else.