Austin police officer Leonardo Quintana was arrested in Leander for Driving While Intoxicated Tuesday. Quintana is in the middle of a federal civil rights lawsuit brought against him by the family of Nathanial Sanders II, the 18-year-old he fatally shot at an East Austin apartment complex more than eight months ago.
Quintana was held in Williamson County Jail on $1,000 bail, which was posted by 9:30 a.m Tuesday morning.
Quintana was found at the scene of a crash at the intersection of Osage and Saddle Blanket in Leander at 5:15 a.m. by Leander police officers, according to an arrest affidavit.
After smelling alcohol on Quintana's breath, officers had him perform a field sobriety test and concluded he showed signs of intoxication. Quintana refused to take a breath or blood test.
Quintana fatally shot Sanders, on May 11, 2009, while Sanders was sitting in the back of a Mercedes-Benz station wagon in the apartment complex's parking lot.
With two other APD officers Quintana investigated the vehicle, which was linked to a series of robberies, but only one officer recorded the incident that morning.
A Travis County grand jury in August 2009 no-billed Quintana after determining that he did not violate criminal law.
APD Chief Art Acevedo said in November that Quintana did not use excessive force and that his use of force was "objectively reasonable based on the totality of the circumstances." However, as a result of violating APD's mobile video recorder policy by not recording the incident, Acevedo suspended Quintana for 15 days.
Quintana's attorney Robert Icenhauer-Ramirez said he does not anticipate that the arrest will have any affect on the lawsuit at all.
Icenhauer-Ramirez said he has not spoken to Quintana about the incident, but that "[Quintana] is going to be retaining an independent council" on the matter.
"These are very stressful circumstances that officer Quintana has been under for the last year," Icenhauer-Ramirez said. "I just don't judge people on these sort of minor pitfalls that they get into when they are under this amount of stress."
Austin Police Association President Wayne Vincent said he does not think the
incident affects Quintana's credibility and that Quintana has been "under a
tremendous amount of stress after what he has gone through."
"He is going to have to answer to the charges,” Vincent said. "The police association is going to support him as any family member going through a crisis. He is going to face what has occurred and we will see what happens."
Quintana has been placed on paid, but restrictive leave by Austin police officials for the DWI arrest.
-------------------
YouTube Video
Photo & More Information
No comments:
Post a Comment