God, this getting to be like beating a dead horse. These Cops are unstoppable forces of stupidity and Brutality. We have hired mad dogs to patrol our streets and supposedly keep order. This is not going to stop until the people as a whole demand, by any means neccesary, for it to stop.
“A Texas sheriff has been indicted on felony charges of tampering with evidence in the case of Javier Ambler, a Black man who was killed by police last year during a traffic stop that escalated into a high-speed chase caught on film by a reality television show.
Sheriff Robert Chody, who turned himself in, was arrested and booked on Monday. He was released shortly after posting $10,000 bail.
The Williamson County grand jury indictment accuses Chody of intentionally destroying or concealing video and audio recordings of the fatal encounter, which was filmed for the television show Live PD.
Jason Nassour, a lawyer with the county attorney’s office, was also indicted on the same felony evidence-tampering charge.
According to the indictment sheriff’s deputies J.J. Johnson and Zach Camden first tried to pull Ambler over for allegedly failing to dim his headlights. But the routine stop became a 22-minute car chase with a helicopter and the television crew in tow. During the chase, Ambler struck a number of vehicles and eventually disabled his own. By then, the pursuit had crossed over into Travis County.
Body camera footage from an Austin Police Department officer, offers a disturbing record of Ambler’s final moments: The 40-year old postal service worker was tased four times as pleaded repeatedly for officers to stop. He repeatedly cried out in agony, telling the deputies he suffered from congestive heart failure and exclaiming, “Save me. I can’t breathe.”
He died at the scene, where Chody and Nassour were also present.
The case went largely unnoticed by the public for months until an investigation by the Austin American-Statesman and local news station KVUE provided a detailed account of Ambler’s death and uncovered the destruction of the raw and unaired Live PD footage. The show was canceled in June and according to the Statesmen, the production company held on to the footage at the request of investigators. But after some time, the recordings were destroyed.
Live PD was a ratings hit for A&E and had been on the air for four years. But amid nationwide protests against police brutality and a slew of recorded incidents of excessive use of force against people of color, the cable network moved to yank the show off the air.
The reports of the destroyed footage prompted Williamson County District Attorney Shawn Dick and Travis County District Attorney Margaret Moore to open a joint investigation into the matter in June.
Live PD producers have since told KVUE that they only disposed of the recordings after they were told by Chody’s office that the investigation was completed using body camera footage and dash camera video.”
Posted by Deborah Jarrett
Deborah Lee Jarrett 