APD to investigate internal-bias charge

AUSTIN (KXAN) - Police Chief Art Acevedo said Tuesday he plans to dig deeper into allegations that an internal-affairs investigation into the shooting of Nathaniel Sanders was biased in favor of the officers involved - saying that an independent review released on Monday should be used as "a tool" in their own review of the fatal May shooting.

"There is one disturbing fact that we have found in terms of potential bias, and we will conduct an investigation into that employee," Acevedo said. "Internal Affairs is the gatekeeper to this department and this organization... We expect Internal Affairs to remain above reproach."

Acevedo also said that part of the criticism in the 133-page report, only some of which was released, may have stemmed from a misunderstanding about how internal investigations work.

"When you have something this complex, you will always have room for improvement," Acevedo said, referring to the entire incident. "There are parts of this report that are critical, but at the end of the day, just like Keypoint (the company that did the review), this police department has leaders that have the capacity, that have the experience and that have the training to be able to see the good, the bad, the ugly."

The report by KeyPoint Government Solutions focused on APD officer Leonardo Quintana's shooting of Sanders in May 2009, and on the investigations that followed.

The heavily-redacted report said parts of the APD investigation were biased towards officers and that there were "substantive deficiencies." The independent review also cited "significant deficiencies in the quality of documentation relating to training of APD officers."

Despite the bias the study found, the review said it felt the "facts developed by the IA investigation combined with those developed by the homicide investigation to be such that our independent investigation did not need to resort to a first-party reinvestigation of those facts."

Austin NAACP President Nelson Linder said Tuesday that he was concerned that only parts of the report were released, which Acevedo said was a decision of the legal department - and that the report may be released when investigations are complete. 

Linder also expressed concern about the report's findings that APD is not implementing policy and procedure changes outlined in a 50-page report from the U.S. Department of Justice sent to Austin City Manager Marc Ott and APD Chief Art Acevedo nearly a year ago.

Further, Linder argues the issues raised in the independent review - part of which was made public on Monday - are the same issues pointed out by the U.S. Department of Justice last December, and Linder claims no changes have been made.

"APD should revise its use of force policies and adopt an appropriate use of force continuum," stated the U.S. Department of Justice report.

The report specifically mentioned the lack of mobile video/audio recording equipment utilization during the traffic stop.

Officer Siddiqui was an officer at the scene of the shooting who had a MVR in his car but was not rolling the tape. The investigation found the car was positioned "in a way that the MVR would have captured the entire event."

The report also mentions: "Officer Quintana was aware that he was going to contact two passengers in a vehicle and that both of the subjects were sleeping. The contact occurred at 5 a.m., the ambient lighting was poor, the officers were wearing dark-colored uniforms."

The report said this was one of the mistakes that the officers made since APD policy requires officers to identify themselves when initiating a duty-related contact with a person, unless their identity is obvious. In this case, the report found the lighting was too poor for the subjects to properly identify them as police officers.

When Quintana tried to awake Sanders in the back seat of the car in East Austin, he saw a handgun in his waistband. Quintana said a brief struggle for the gun ensued before he drew his gun and fired through the rear car window at Sanders.

Quintana said he discharged his weapon because he saw Sanders had a gun. Quintana also shot Sir Lawrence Smith, a passenger in the car, but he was not killed.

The Citizen's Review Panel and the Austin Police Monitor will make their recommendations to Acevedo, who must render his decision in by Nov. 7 by law.

"The determination of whether or not a particular use of force was justified can only be made after a thorough and complete investigation that is designed to promote fairness, a sense of justice and administrative accountability," stated the report. "This officer-involved shooting is undergoing such a process."

The Travis County grand jury previously declined to indict Quintana. The report also quantifies its analysis:

"Certainly there will be some who will question this level of scrutiny for an incident that occurred under field conditions, in the middle of the night. Indeed, discretionary decision-making is an inherent part of police work. There is simply