Travis County District Attorney Jose Garza, whose office oversaw indictments against more than 20 Austin police officers for tactics used during the 2020 protests that followed the death of George Floyd, said Monday he was dropping most of the cases and would ask the Justice Department to investigate instead, the Associated Press reports. The announcement is a sharp reversal for the Texas prosecutor who was elected months after the protests and promised to hold police accountable in the Texas capital. Garza said his office would dismiss indictments against 17 officers but still move forward with prosecuting four others. The slate of felony charges were by far the most indictments of officers from a single U.S. police department following nationwide protests in 2020 over racial injustice and police brutality. Some Austin police officers fired beanbag rounds in the crowd, critically injuring one teenager.
“This has been a difficult chapter for Austin. I look forward to turning the page. These announcements will allow police officers, whose lives were upended by the indictments, to return to their services to our community,” said Austin Mayor Kirk Watson. In a statement, Garza did not explain why he was deciding now to drop most of the cases. Many of the officers were indicted in February 2022, none had gone to trial and Gov. Greg Abbott had floated the idea of pardons after the charges were handed down by a grand jury. Garza said his office “would continue to hold law enforcement who break the law accountable.” In a letter to the Justice Department, Garza asked prosecutors to review Austin police’s use of force for crowd control during the protests. Ken Ervin, an attorney who represents nine officers whose charges will be dismissed, called the indictments a “combination of politics and incompetence.”
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