Author: mopress

On October 8, 2004, Daniel Rocha was sentenced to six (6) years
Community Supervision for the criminal offense of Burglary of a
Habitation…. Since that date, two (2) Motion To Revoke Probation have
been filed. thje first was filed on February 8, 2005 due to Rocha
being arrested for Possession of Marijuana, failure to complete a TCADA
License Intensive Outpatient Treatment and delinquent monies. The
offender was continued on supervision on Apri 1, 2005.

On June 2 [H name withheld by editor] called to inform me that Mr.
Rocha had committed the subsequent criminal offense of Theft from a
Person, State Jail Felony. He also indicated that at the time of
the offense, the offender was seen with [I name withheld by editor] a
convicted felon…

The report goes on to describe a conversation with Danel’s mother
Daniella in which the mother expresses concern that Daniel is hanging
out with the old crowd: "she was worried about him getting hurt because he does something stupid while getting arrested."

In early 2002, Rocha was assigned to my math class, since he was having
problems with his grades and had a slight learning disability.
Rocha seemed to be cocky and non-caring about school….One day he
confronted me and pulled out a large roll of cash and showed it to
me. He asked me "How much do you make?" He flashed this
roll in my face and said he made enough money to buy a grade from
me….I decided to front him out in front of the class. I told
Rocha that he would just get busted and use all his money getting a
lawyer to get out of jail. Rocha would always say "No cop is
going to take anything away from me or take me down. I ain’t
goin’ to jail….We attempted to work with him and tried to intervene
as needed….Some of the female students said they were afraid of
Rocha…I became upset when I heard people in the neighborhood saying
that Rocha was a good boy and an innocent young man….

The entry wound is to the left back, below and medial to the scapula,
centered 14 3/4 inches below the top of the head, 4 3/4 inches to the
left of posterior midline, 6 1/2 inches below the upper surface of the
shoulder, and about 1/4 inch above nipple level….The wound is also
surrounded by a slightly eccentric deposit of black soot and powder
tattoo marks which fan upward and to the left of the defect for 1.1 cm,
and downward and medially for 8 mm….Eight loose flakes of gunpowder
are present surrounding the wound in an 11.5 cm diameter.

The bullet is easily palpated along the right lateral torso, 20 1/4
inches below the top of the head…4 inches below nipple level….

Subsequent autopsy reveals the bullet entered the left posterior chest
cavity by fracturing the posterior 7th rib which is fragmented and
splintered. Bone fragments are carried along the track of the
bullet through the left lower lung lobe, along a 1.5 cm wide
hemorrhagic track through the lung. The bulle then passed across
the left lateral vertebral column at the level of the 8th intercostal
space without producing any fracture, and perforated the aorta.
The track through the aorta contains bone splinters, and an 11X1X5 mm
detached copper petal of the bullet jacket. The bullet then
passed through the right lower lung lobe, the right hemi-diaphram, and
through the liver where a 4.5 cm wide stellate track is present from
the dome of the liver to the anterior right lobe. The bullet then
perforated the anterior reflection of the diaphram and fractured the
anterolateral right 7th rib, lodging in the 7th intercostal space.

The recovered bullet is semi-jacketed, with a 9mm wide base, and one
petal of the jacket missing. The other petals of the copper
jacket are curled backward, exposing the lead core. The number
"1082" is inscribed in the open lead core of the bullet, and the bullet
is placed in a small envelope, labeled, and released to… The
detached copper petal recovered in the aorta is also released to…

The gunshot wound produced a 1,000 cc left hemothrax, and a 650 cc
right hemothrax. The path of the gunshot wound was back to front,
left to right, and downward.

A few other acute injuries are noted to the body:

• Present along the lateral left upper arm, centered about 3 inches
  below the upper surface of the shoulder, is a 5X4 cm wide injury
  composed of stippled lines of punctate pink abrasions which lie about 5
  mm apart, and run upward from anterior to posterior.
• Along the lateral right forehead is a 6 mm sparse red abrasion.
• Along the anterior right chin, 1 1/4 inches below the corner of
  the mouth, 3/4 to the right of anterior midline, is a 1.2 X 0.7 cm
  abrasion.
• Along the right anterior chest, beginning two inches below nipple
  level and 1 1/2 inches to the right of the anterior midline, and
  running downward to the right, is a 5 X 0.1 cm red scratch abrasion.
• Along the mid back of the right upper arm is a faint 3 cm wide blue contusion.
• Along the mid medial right forearm is a 3 X 2 mm red abrasion

Probable body positions:

Probable body positions for the deceased include down on one or both knees or bent over at the waist.

Probable body positions for the shooter include standing or kneeling to the left front side of the deceased.

Additional movement of the shooter is possible if the arm is bent instead of straight out.

TBI, LLC A Forensic Education & Consulting Company (Norman OK)

By Greg Moses

Below are transcribed excerpts from the Rocha files released by the Travis County District Attorney’s office following an announcement that the Grand Jury had decided to issue no criminal indictments. Here are a few key phrases:

• Rocha’s body was off to my left side but now he was on top of my boss. I could see Sgt. Doyle and Rocha fighting.–Julie Schroeder
• he was still on his feet and struggling. I was hoping we could get him to the ground. At that time I heard a pop….–Schroeder’s boss
• The path of the gunshot wound was back to front, left to right, and downward.–medical examiner
• Probable body positions for the deceased include down on one or both knees or bent over at the waist.–Forensic consultant
• I could see Julie standing to the east of an unknown male who was laying face down on the ground and Sgt. Doyle was on his knees on the west side of the subject–Backup Cop
• I hear the guy say "weapon" but I didn’t see anything in his hands. I saw him get on his hands and knees and saw the female officer with her left hand trying to put him on the ground and she was kinda kneeling with her left hand and knee. I saw her with a gun in her right hand. I saw he was lying flat. I don’t know if the guy was fighting with the officer or resisting because I did not see that. I thought that the police were going to arrest him and put him up. I walked off back to my house but then I heard a shot….–Witness

What to make of this sad, sad stack of docs? There is no question that Daniel Rocha had been a troubled kid and was making some poor choices in the first weeks of his adult life. He was very likely engaged in illegal activity of a not very unusual kind on the night he was killed. He was involving himself in petty drug dealing. From the testimony of friends and teachers, Daniel was a spirited character with an outlaw edge.

The record shows that he was also doing things that anyone would call cops to stop, such as burglary or theft. But on the night of his death was he engaging in the kind of behavior that justified a killing? If he was no role model, he was also no monster, and no stack of previous behaviors attributed to him would warrant anything near a summary execution–not even in Texas.

In this case, it appears from the evidence released by the grand jury that Officer Schroeder displayed a pattern of poor judgment in her impulsive decision to make the traffic stop and in her life or death determination to detain Rocha right then and there. Reports from her partner and her boss indicate that they were not quite prepared in advance for the ‘take down’ when she abruptly initiated it.

The inability of Schroeder and her boss to contain Rocha even when double teaming him indicates that the ground was poorly chosen for this action. From the time Officer Schroeder threw her car into reverse, the tone for this tragedy was set. It is difficult to imagine that good cops would find this a worthy pattern of action.

The expert report from Oklahoma indicates that the probable position of Daniel Rocha at the time of shooting was on one or two knees or bent over, with Officer Schroeder at arm’s length to his left. In other words, the probable positions confirm Officer Schroeder’s statement, that Rocha was not fighting her at the time of the shooting.

Schroeder’s claim that Rocha was doing something more than trying to get away from her boss seems incredible when compared to her boss’ statement that he was hanging onto Rocha’s foot. So there is no question that Daniel Rocha was playing with fire in his gangsta attitude, but there is also an expectation that cops are trained to deal with such cases in ways that do not escalate into on-the-spot executions. I think that’s why they are called peace officers. To kids, especially teenage males, we have to suggest better things, but then again, we have to be pretty careful that we not pretend to have offered Daniel a well-chosen world to work with. When I think of the comment that he had a slight learning disability, then I can see how he was following the wrong crowd, he just wasn’t so quick as the one who first jumped the fence. A slight learning disability is all it would take for that moment of hesitation, then that moment of tragic motivation to follow his friend over the fence.

Did Officer Schroeder raise a gun to that first escapee? No, she called him by name, just to let him know that she knew who he was and where to find him another day. He climbed a tree, waited, and lived to hear the shot. What was so different about Daniel that night?

I don’t know if the Police Association intends to come off this way, but in their public comments about this mess, they seem to indicate that any resistance to police may very well justify deadly force. In other words, they want absolute authority in this life. If this is the message that the grand jury was trying to send–‘obey or die’–then the grand jury has run too far into police state mentality. Everyone has a role to play in breaking cycles of unfairness. Unfortunately, in these docs one finds too many trails of continuing evasion.