Editor’s note: the videos are graphic and we urge viewers to use their discretion. Police say Ecstasy was found on Braziel and ingestion of the drug may have caused his behaviour that resulted in his death.
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“I don’t want another police officer being shot at or killed based on that false narrative, not in this city”, Turner said.
The officer in the video walks over to the suspect and removes a handgun from Braziel’s right hand and kicks it aside. But what the video does not show is a close-up of the actual shooting.
“Just make sure ain’t nobody run up with no pistols or nothing”, one officer says.
Houston’s mayor is set to release video footage from a police shooting in which officers killed a black man earlier this month. The officers can also be heard on the video expressing concerns for the safety as they thought there might be other armed individuals intending to shoot them. A few seconds later the driver’s door of the police vehicle can be seen opening and the man falls to the ground.
The case is being investigated by the HPD Homicide and Internal Affairs Divisions, as well as the Harris County District Attorney’s Office.
UPDATE: 3:34 p.m.
Nikki Braziel, widow of Alva Braziel, who was shot by Houston police earlier this month, holds her hands up in the air recounting the video she watched of the shooting of Braziel, following a press conference by city officials, Thursday, July 21, 2016, in Houston. Though the department’s body camera policy requires officers to begin recording before engaging in any law enforcement activity, such as trying to detain a suspect, Montalvo noted the rules allow an officer to delay a recording if he or she is in immediate danger.
Surveillance video from a nearby gas station appear to show a muzzle flash from Braziel opening fire before police arrived. But the officer-activated cameras start recording in the moments after Braziel was shot.
The shooting comes amid rising tensions and hostility against police nationally in the wake of several shootings by police officers of unarmed African-American suspects. In these instances, the officer shall activate his BWC as soon as it is safe to do so, to ensure that the remainder of the incident is properly recorded. Braziel was black. Both the officers involved in the shooting are white. Turner said he will release the body camera footage and surveillance video Thursday, after waiting a day to give Braziel’s family a chance to see the footage first.
“It did not show that Mr. Braziel was waving a gun, pointing a gun, it didn’t show that in that video”, she told reporters after the conference.
“There was enough time to turn on the cameras”, Woods said. “Braziel then lowered his weapon and again pointed it directly” at the officers, police said.
“The root cause is black men and women… are seen as risky, as aggressive, as animalistic”, Woods said. “I think most people will agree with that”.
Woods said he does not believe police were justified in shooting Braziel.
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He said the deadly shootings of five officers in Dallas, Texas, and three officers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, have created tense relations and that releasing the footage was “in everyone’s best interest”.
