Harris County Sheriff’s Workplace/ YouTube
Relations of Alexis Cardenas need witness statements and unedited surveillance footage of a wrestle with detention officers that preceded his dying inside the Harris County Jail, in keeping with a pre-lawsuit petition filed Thursday in court docket.
The authorized submitting, known as a Rule 202 petition, seeks to entry sure proof and medical data in regards to the circumstances surrounding Cardenas’ dying, which occurred as he was being launched from the jail in July, in keeping with the Harris County Sheriff’s Workplace.
Narrated video footage launched by the sheriff’s workplace final month exhibits a number of officers pinning the 32-year-old Cardenas to the bottom after he allegedly refused to exit and walked again towards a safe space of the jail. They seen he was unresponsive about 5 minutes after the officers gained management of him, in keeping with the sheriff’s workplace.
Cardenas was pronounced lifeless after being transported to a close-by hospital. Medical experts final week dominated that he died by murder. His major reason behind dying was an irregular heartbeat related to poisonous results of medication and alcohol “throughout bodily and electrical restraint,” in keeping with the Harris County medical expert’s workplace.
Questions have risen in regards to the altercation that led to Cardenas’ dying and his arrest by Houston law enforcement officials over a decade-old site visitors quotation.
The authorized submitting by an legal professional for Cardenas’ members of the family requests all unedited and unnarrated jail surveillance and body-worn digital camera video footage depicting Cardenas’ detention within the jail and the moments surrounding his deadly altercation with officers. The petition additionally requests incident stories associated to his dying, medical data, witness statements and body-worn digital camera footage from Cardenas’ arrest by the Houston Police Division two days earlier than he died.
His household beforehand mentioned he was struggling a psychological well being disaster on the time of his arrest July 6. In response to Houston Public Media’s request for movies of the arrest, the Houston Police Division mentioned it could take 220 enterprise days and greater than $215 in charges to provide the footage.
RELATED: Weeks after Harris County Jail dying, questions on arrest, altercation with officers stay
Harris County Sheriff’s Workplace spokesperson Jason Spencer, who declined to touch upon Friday, beforehand advised Houston Public Media that the sheriff’s workplace launched all of the movies it has of staff’ interactions with Cardenas up till they initiated CPR.
Rule 202 filings are thought-about investigatory and search to take depositions earlier than a possible lawsuit is filed. The filings can be utilized to find out if sure claims exist earlier than litigation.
The petition asserts, nonetheless, that the members of the family and attorneys “anticipate asserting wrongful dying and varied civil rights claims in opposition to the Harris County Sheriff’s Workplace and the officers who have been concerned in Alexis’s dying.” It claims that governmental businesses have stonewalled attorneys’ efforts to acquire details about Cardenas’ dying as much as looking for a ruling from the Texas Legal professional Common’s Workplace to withhold sure data.
The petition was filed by Lee Thweatt, an legal professional representing Cardenas’ household, and the Nationwide Police Accountability Challenge, a nonprofit group. Lauren Bonds, the manager director of the group, mentioned in an announcement that households shouldn’t should combat arduous to be taught the reality about how their family members died in authorities custody.
“When jails can conceal data after a dying in custody, it erodes public belief and denies households the transparency they deserve,” she mentioned. “Harris County should not be allowed to regulate the narrative whereas concealing the reality.”
