The Associated Press
HOUSTON (AP) - An autopsy report that shows a suspected thief was shot in the side is raising questions about a Harris County sheriff’s deputy’s claim that he fired at the man in self defense.
The report obtained by the Houston Chronicle appears to contradict Deputy Zachary Long’s assertion that he shot and killed the suspect on Feb. 1 as the man’s van accelerated toward him.
Long told investigators he was working an extra job when he saw Rodolfo Gonzalez Garcia pilfering shingles from a Humble construction site, according to documents obtained by the newspaper.
Long said Garcia, 31, got into his van and tried to run him down after the deputy approached him.
“I was standing in front of the vehicle, and the driver was looking right at me,” Long told investigators. “I was in fear for my life and discharged my weapon.”
He said the van struck him in the leg.
The autopsy report, however, shows Garcia was killed by two bullets that entered on the left side of his body and lodged in his chest. And Randall Kallinen, an attorney for Garcia’s family, said an expert examination of the vehicle shows no bullet passed through the van’s windshield or the front of the car.
Kallinen said Long’s life could not have been in danger because the van had already passed him when he shot at Garcia.
The autopsy report was completed March 22, six months before the Harris County District Attorney’s Office presented the case to a grand jury. The prosecutor in the case has said he told jurors they should not indict Long because the shooting was “a simple self-defense issue.”
The grand jury refused to indict Long.
The newspaper could not reach Long or Tommy LaFon, the prosecutor in the case, for comment. District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal said he believed the grand jury would have been told how and where Garcia had been wounded.
Autopsy reports are routinely made public, but the Harris County medical examiner has withheld Garcia’s autopsy report, saying an investigation into the shooting was ongoing.
Sheriff’s department officials declined to comment on the autopsy report, citing a pending lawsuit that Garcia’s family has filed against Long and the department. They also would not discuss why the report was being withheld.
Garcia’s shooting is one of at least 22 since 1999 in which sheriff’s deputies have killed or wounded people by firing into vehicles in contradiction of their training.
Sheriff Tommy Thomas adopted a strict policy in July that forbids officers from firing into vehicles unless someone inside is pointing a gun or using some type of deadly force other than the vehicle itself.
The newspaper sued the sheriff in September seeking a copy of another autopsy report in the death of a man who was shot and killed during a May traffic stop.