AUSTIN, Texas — Two Austin Police Department officers have been suspended over a March incident where, when giving their official reports, they intentionally excluded information about another officer using a Taser on a subject who was already handcuffed, according to a memo sent from Police Chief Joseph Chacon to the director of civil service.
A third officer was also suspended for his treatment of a reported sexual assault victim.
Two officers suspended in use-of-force incident
According to the memo, on March 12, three officers including Officers Katherine Alzola and Eric Perez responded to an urgent call to an apartment on Townesouth Circle. While inside the apartment, Perez recognized one occupant who had a warrant for his arrest for assault with injury - family violence. Perez and one of the other officers attempted to detain him to confirm the outstanding warrant, but the man displayed resistance and a "response to resistance" ensued involving Alzola, Perez and the other officer.
The memo states that within seconds, a fourth officer arrived and also engaged in the response to resistance, striking the man's back with his baton. As the officers were attempting to handcuff the man, he inadvertently handcuffed himself during the struggle. Perez then completely secured the handcuffs but didn't effectively communicate to the other officers that he had done so.
At this time, believing the man to still be resisting arrest, the fourth officer deployed his Taser against the man three times after he was already handcuffed, the memo states.
The memo then states that while the officers were still on scene but before a supervisor arrived, Alzola asked Perez to turn off his body-worn camera so they could have an unrecorded conversation. Perez turned off the camera and, as was later admitted to Internal Affairs, they had a conversation about the incident.
Both Alzola and Perez turned their body cameras back on at some point, the memo states. When a supervisor arrived on the scene to conduct the routine field investigation of the officers' use of force, both Alzola and Perez gave the supervisor an incomplete account of what happened, according to the memo. They also both wrote incident reports that were incomplete.
Additionally, Alzola took photographs of the injuries the man had sustained during the struggle. Several of the injuries – which consisted of linear-shaped swollen contusions on his back – were consistent with baton strikes, according to the memo. The man also had skin punctures on the upper-right portion of his back from the deployment of the Taser.
The memo states that an Internal Affairs investigation determined that neither Alzola nor Perez was in a position to initially prevent harm to the man. The investigation also concluded that Alzola did not realize the man was handcuffed when the baton strikes were delivered nor when the Taser was deployed, and Perez did not immediately know the man had inadvertently handcuffed himself and was not able to completely secure the handcuffs on the man until the conclusion of the baton strikes and prior to the tasing.
However, once Perez had secured the handcuffs, he was required to intercede to prevent further harm to the man and he failed to do so. Though Perez told the fourth officer seven times that the man was handcuffed, Perez did not physically intercede or take any other steps to prevent further harm to the man.
Alzola and Perez also did not promptly report their observations to a supervisor and they made no mention to the supervisor that the baton was used to strike the man multiple times, nor did they mention that the man was tased multiple times and that he was handcuffed at the time.
Both Alzola and Perez have been suspended for 90 days. Perez's suspension began on Sept. 28 and Alzola's on Sept. 29.
Third officer suspended in treatment of sexual assault victim
Officer Brian O'Quinn was suspended 20 days after APD got a complaint that he was rude to a woman reporting a sexual assault and "acted like he didn't believe her," documents say. APD found that he failed to relay important information to a detective, among other inaction.
"Officer O'Quinn's failure to conduct a proper investigation, collect evidence, relay and document this incident will likely hinder any potential efforts to prosecute this case," Chacon said in a memo released Wednesday.
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