4 Houston Police Officers Fired Over Fatal Shooting Of Nicolas Chavez
Source: NPR
Four Houston police officers have been terminated for their involvement in the fatal shooting of 27-year-old Nicolas Chavez in April. The Houston Police Department announced the firings Thursday and released body camera footage of the encounter.
Multiple officers were on the scene the night Chavez was shot to death. They fired a total of 24 shots at Chavez — only three of which were deemed "objectively reasonable," Police Chief Art Acevedo said at a news conference.
"The discharge of those 21 shots for those four members of the Houston Police Department are not objectively reasonable," Acevedo said. "I believe that anyone that watches this tape, that sees this, would see that they had a lot of opportunities and a lot of other options readily available to them."
The department has said that officers were responding to a "suicide in progress call" and used a combination of lethal and nonlethal rounds to try to subdue Chavez. Police said he had a blunt metal object that was initially thought to be a knife but later found to be a piece of metal rebar.
Read more: https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-protests-for-racial-justice/2020/09/11/911900516/4-houston-police-officers-fired-over-fatal-shooting-of-nicolas-chavez