Former APD officer fights to regain job

AUSTIN (KXAN) - Former Austin police officer Leonardo Quintana is fighting to get his job back during a civil service hearing Thursday morning.

Austin Police Department Chief Art Acevedo in May fired Quintana , 33, following his arrest on Jan. 11 on charges of driving while intoxicated in Leander.

Earlier on the day of his arrest, Quintana underwent cross-examination for six hours as part of the federal lawsuit related to the killing of Nathaniel Sanders, II, who was 18 years old.

Quintana shot and killed Sanders in May 2009 after responding to an early morning incident at the Walnut Creek apartments at 6409 Springdale Road .

While a Travis County grand jury cleared Quintana in August 2009 of criminal charges for using deadly force in the shooting, he was suspended three months later for 15 days for violating the department's dash cam policy after he failed to turn it on the morning of the fatal shooting.

Quintana's civil service hearing, which began at 9 a.m. Thursday, is open to the public and is at the city of Austin Human Resources Learning and Resource Center .

You can follow live on tweets on Chris Sadeghi's twitter page.

9:10 AM

Hearing officer Louise Wolitz starts the proceedings by setting the ground rules for the civil service hearing. The city has the burden of proof to show their discipline of Quintana is justified.

After both cases are made, she will have 30 days to make her decision.

City attorney Michael Cronig tells Wolitz by law, she has only 3 courses of action:

1. to return Quintana to the force

2. a 15 day suspension

3. uphold the indefinite suspension.

He then says evidence will show the indefinite suspension handed down by APD is justified.

Quintana's attorney Tom Stribling then makes his opening statement and says based on the evidence and prior disciplinary cases for DWI, the punishment does not fit the crime.

9:25 AM

Internal affairs investigator Sgt. Justin Newsom is the first witness.

He testifies on the night Quintana was arrested for DWI, he had been drinking at a sushi restaurant in south Austin and later at a strip club and had an estimated blood-alcohol level of .192.

According to a deposition with Quintana, he admitted to having between 5 and 10 beers along with shots of sake.

Newsom says Quintana made a conscious decision to drive knowing the effects of the alcohol on his ability to operate a vehicle.

Again quoting deposition, Newsom says Quintana had an opportunity to stay at a fellow officer's house, but tried to drive home because he was accompanied by a female officer and thought "things were going to progress" with the female.

He acknowledged it was a risk to drive and the stress from the deposition from the Nathanial Sanders shooting did not figure into his decision to drive.

10:00 AM

In the two mile drive from home, Quintana was involved in an accident. He failed the sobriety test.

According to a deposition with Quintana, he says he had been drinking increasingly more while on administrative leave after the shooting and had been seeking professional help about his drinking problem.

Cronig ends his questioning by confirming with Newsom that the DWI arrest did not make Quintana nor APD look very good in the wake of the Nathanial Sanders shooting.

10:15 AM

Stribling begins his questioning by asking how many APD officers were in the party of eight at the sushi restaurant with Quintana. Stribling says all but two were officers with the department. Stribling then asks why those other officers were not investigated for drinking and driving.

Newsom says they were not investigated because a complaint was never brought to him for those officers.

Stribling continues  to try and paint other officers as irresponsible the night of the DWI offense and they could have prevented the accident from happening.

He wraps up his questioning by confirming Quintana initially did not want to go out that night and has been very cooperative with the investigation.

10:40 AM

Sgt. Stephen Fleming, Quintana's supervisor after he was reassigned from the shooting incident, is now testifying.

Fleming says they recommended Quintana speak with the professional about his drinking problem and the stress the situation following the shooting was causing him was evident.

Within a week of returning to his job, Quintana posted a picture on a social media site of him holding a handgun and the caption that said "back to work." Fleming says the posting was concerning considering the high profile incident in which Quintana had just been involved.

During this time, Quintana was invovled in a tumultuous relationship with a female officer at APD. Fleming had to give Quintana a memo asking him to stay away from the officer and it was the first time he had ever had to issue such a memo to an officer on staff.

Fleming says he believes Quintana made a conscious decision to drive that night knowing the risk and when Chief Art Acevedo asked about discipllinary action, Fleming felt a suspension between 16-90 days