Leave It to the D.A.

Here’s one of those stories from the El Paso Times that made the front page of the dead tree edition but you have to look for if you want to see it online:

An investigation into the death of Xavier Guadalupe Hernandez during an arrest on the side of a freeway is now in the hands of the El Paso District Attorney’s Office. It will likely go to a grand jury to determine if criminal charges will be filed against the police officers.

Hernandez, 30, died in a controversial case recorded on an El Paso Police Department body camera video that raised criticism over how police handled what started as a call about a pedestrian on Interstate 10 and ended with Hernandez’s death on July 13.

El Paso District Attorney James Montoya, in an emailed statement on Wednesday, Aug. 20, said his office has now received the investigation conducted by El Paso police.

Do you remember when El Paso Police Officer Jose Flores shot handcuffed prisoner Danny Saenz in the back as he lay on the ground in the sallyport of the El Paso County Jail?

That happened on March 8, 2013, but no one knew about it till about a year later, after the El Paso Times filed a Public Information Act request to get the video.

Officer Flores shot a handcuffed prisoner in the back as he lay on the ground, and was all on video. District Attorney Jaime Esparza couldn’t get the Grand Jury to return an indictment. They couldn’t even bring an indictment of reckless endangerment.

(Speaking of which, don’t you imagine, with all those police officers showing up, there’s more than one body camera video of the Xavier Guadalupe Hernandez homicide?)

Do you suppose that District Attorney James Montoya will have more success after this case is presented to a Grand Jury? Remember, a competent District Attorney could get a Grand Jury to indict a ham sandwich.

If he wanted an indictment. A competent District Attorney could also get a Grand Jury to no-bill a police officer even if he was captured on video shooting a handcuffed prisoner in the back, or compressing a prisoner to death in the emergency lane of Interstate 10, if a competent District Attorney didn’t want a jury, and the public, to see the case.

So I don’t have high expectations for the District Attorney’s case in front of a Grand Jury. I reckon that little bit of judicial theater will only whitewash the incident.