Texas Civil Rights Review - Rocha's Friends Respond to 'No Bill' of Cop who Killed Him

By Greg Moses

Sarah and Roxanne knew Daniel Rocha in high school, so at the press conference called by Poder, LULAC, and the ACLU, they shared a sign protesting the grand jury's decision to issue no indictments against the police officer who killed him. Both Sarah and Roxanne say the same thing about the situation: "Daniel was a small guy."

"Daniel was pretty cool," says Roxanne. "I had a dance class with his girlfriend, so he was always at the door waiting for her. He always had a smile on his face. He was always making everyone laugh. He would tell a lot of jokes."

That was back in 2003 before Roxanne had her little girl, Justice. "Her dad named her that." In fact, Sarah and Roxanne, who are cousins, were at the courthouse Tuesday so that Justice could visit her dad at the county jail. He's been there for a couple of months, but he should hopefully be getting out later this week.

Anyway, when the cousins saw what the protest was about they said to each other, "let's stay out here." At first there were enough signs so that Roxanne and Sarah could each hold one, but then a guy came to the protest who didn't have a sign, so Roxanne gave him hers, and after that she shared Sarah's, all the while holding Justice on her shoulder.

According to reports coming out of the courthouse Tuesday, the officer told the Grand Jury how she had lost her taser while pushing Daniel to the ground and feared that if he had the taser, he might use it against another police officer at the scene and take that officer's gun. "I have been in a number of fights before and never have I felt this scared and afraid. Instinctively, I grabbed for my gun and shot him once. Self-preservation took over."

One news report Tuesday night stated matter of factly that Rocha "was shot in the back as he stood over another officer who had fallen during the fight." But witnesses reported that the officer who did the shooting was standing over Daniel when she pulled the trigger. And Daniel was "already on the ground."

Says attorney Bobby Taylor in behalf of the Rocha family: "What we're being told is that the officer did not know where her Taser was, and that's the justification for shooting him in the back. That's the justification for it. That's it. She did not see him with it. He did not threaten her. If I were a police officer I'd feel pretty comfortable in doing whatever the world I wanted to do."

The Police Officers Association sees it as fair warning: "I think it tells people, 'Don't fight the police when we're out there trying to do our job.' I think the public and the law states that you have to comply with the officers," said the association's rep.

Buried under Tuesday's events was the memory that of three cop cars at the scene that night, none of them was able to produce the required video tape. One machine was empty, one malfunctioned, and the third car arrived too late, said police.

At any rate, says Sarah, "There were two cops there, and Daniel was a little guy." The Grand Jury, she thinks, is "full of themselves." Their decision to issue no indictments really, really, really upsets her. "They have all the evidence there, but like a friend of mine says, guns don't kill people, police kill people. He wasn't that big."

"I'm not going to lie to you," says Sarah when I ask her about Daniel. "He was a good guy, but I'm not going to say he didn't have some bad times. He was in and out of juvenile. Some was for drug charges." As she sees it, Daniel drifted into hard company in a hard neighborhood, he had no dad, but he cared.

For example, the last class she shared with Daniel was a self-paced computer lab where students could make up for classes they had not yet passed. Daniel was doing some math there. Sarah was doing some history. She recalls that he was concentrating on his work, but he would get up and start dancing now and then.

She remembers in early March that Daniel took his camera to school and talked about pictures that he had taken of his mom. "I love my mom so much," she recalls Daniel saying. "I know I'm stressing her out really bad. I need to stop." But soon after that he got into a fight, which caused him more trouble at school. They didn't let him graduate.

Sarah senses that living in a troubled neighborhood is a double threat to kids like Daniel. There's the trouble they can get into, and there's the trouble that people will think they are up to, whether or not they are. She thinks that because Daniel was caught in a car that had just driven out of a poor neighborhood that "the cops took it the wrong way."

Police say the car had been spotted in a drug transaction while under surveillance, but Sarah asks if the car was under surveillance, why weren't the police better prepared for the stop? If this was a planned drug trap in the first place, why was it handled like a routine traffic stop, three suspects, two cops? And the missing video tapes? "Maybe if there was one car and that video didn't work, but all of them? I don't believe that."

For Sarah, there is an attitude of suspicion that cops bring to the neighborhood that makes her angry. It also makes her worry about baby Justice, who also lives in a troubled part of town. "What if one day she's at the wrong place at the wrong time. Just because she has black in her, just because she's Hispanic, just because she's a different color..."

But most of all she wants the world to know that Daniel had not yet given up on himself. "He had dreams. He was trying to take care of his mom. He had goals set for himself." Daniel talked about starting his own clothing line named D-Roch that would feature jerseys, shoes, and pants. He dressed like he cared about his clothes.

"If it was raining," says Sarah, "and if he was wearing new shoes, he would wear bags over his shoes." Over the telephone I hear a little puffing sound as Sarah laughs through her nose. That was Daniel, not too proud to wear bags on his shoes in the rain. "He took real good care of himself. I really want you to put it out there that he wasn't a bad person."