Report: Quintana's actions "reckless"

AUSTIN (KXAN) - Austin's Police Chief denies accusations of a coverup after a leaked report contradicts the department's version of what happened in the Nathaniel Sanders shooting.

When the City of Austin's independent review of last year's shooting came out in October, it was far from complete.

Major sections dealing with former Officer Leo Quintana, who shot Sanders, 18, were redacted from the document.

Now, information from the unedited version of that report has appeared in the Austin American-Statesman , adding fuel to the fire of critics who accuse Austin Police and the city of a "coverup."

The report apparently uses the words "excessive force" and "reckless" to describe Quintana's fatal shooting of Sanders.

It also says Quintana fired on Sanders without seeing a gun in the teenager's hand.

Chief Acevedo held a press conference this afternoon defending his ruling that Quintana acted with department policy.

"For him to say that my mayor, my manager and the police chief have engaged in a coverup, I find offensive, I find inflammatory and quite honestly, I find it irresponsible," said Acevedo, in response to criticism from Jim Harrington with the Texas Civil Rights Project , who is called Acevedo's failure to release the full report  "a cover-up."

The independent review of Quintana called his actions in the fatal shoot Sanders in May 2009, "reckless".

Earlier in the day, leaders from two civil rights groups criticized Acevedo and other city officials for not releasing the full report.

"What they're doing is making us pay $50,000 to cover up a killing that investigators found to be unjustified," said Jim Harrington with the Texas Civil rights Project .

Quintana lost his job this week after he was arrested in January for DWI just hours after he underwent lengthy questioning regarding the Sanders case.

Acevedo defended his ruling and told KXAN "as a soldier of the law" he is prohibited by federal law from releasing the full report despite his deep desire to be transparent.

"I am champing at the bit for my opportunity to speak up on our reasonings, our findings. I have to obey the law. I have no choice," Acevedo explained.

"All this does is reflect, as much as they have told us things are changing, things are not changing, they don't want to be held accountable for what happened," Harrington said.

"We've said from day one that excessive force obviously occurred they should have addressed it early on and made sure this officer was terminated based on his behavior and they didn't," said Nelson Linder, president of Austin's NAACP .
 

Harrington added that he feels that they Mayor, City Manager and Acevedo need to pay taxpayers back the $50,000 they spent on this review.

Acevedo, however, said he is standing by his report and reiterated many times that he looks forward to "openly, honestly and thoroughly" testifying at the civil trial.

Mayor Lee Leffingwell also got caught up in the dispute.

He was quoted in the newspaper this morning as saying the report's conclusions were "just an opinion."

Since then, the Mayor has changed his tune.

Later this afternoon, Leffingwell amended his response, and said, "the Council remained unaware of the full details until they were reported in the media. Like everyone, I'm troubled by the findings of the report, and intend to review the matter fully."