Category: Uncategorized

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.

‘No Nonsence in November’ has a campaign website, announced this week
by
Texas political prodigy Glen Maxey, aiming to defeat that ugly
amendment to constitutionalize homophobia in Texas. Remember,
Texas was one of
the few states to turn back ballot ID, and we can beat this
Republican-led effort at public paranoia, too. Here’s where you go to
stay on message:

http://www.nononsenseinnovember.com/
Sez the website: "For the first time in history, you are being asked to put a
prohibition against someone’s human rights in a document that has long
been seen as the place where you grant and expand protections for
people."

See also TCRR review of initiative to constitutionalize homophobia in Texas.

Thanks to Angela Valenzuela’s valuable newsletter, we receive word of a
serious report on children of immigrants. And the report praises one
Texas program that for the past 30 years has been proving that social
trends are not social destiny.

Valenzuela’s internet work at TexasEdEquity keeps up with research and media attention given to key educational issues. Her email list Wednesday included notice of a new report
by the National Council of State Legislators addressing the growing
population of children among immigrants. Statistical trends among
children of immigrants are not promising, with gaps showing up in
school performance, graduation, and income levels. But as a nation of
immigrants should well know, these trends are not destiny, and one
Texas organization has been showing how to do things right:

Another
successful program – Avance, based in Texas –serves predominantly
low-income Latino families through parent education, early childhood
development, literacy, and English language acquisition. Despite the
fact that 91 percent of the parents in the program are high school
dropouts, 94 percent of their children complete high school, 43 percent
attend college, and half of the parents continue their education.
Avance started as a preschool and school readiness program but has also
been successful in improving parent outcomes. Avance is funded by
federal, state, county and city governments, United Way, foundations
and corporations and serves more than 13,000 parents and children
annually.

As the web site
for Avance proudly claims, the core model of the program addresses
parents of low-income Latino children during pre-school years, offering
nine months of instruction in "stages of emotional, physical, social
and cognitive development of their children with special topics that
range from the importance of reading, effective discipline to
nutrition. Parents also attend classes in literacy learning English and
getting their GED."

For social determinists such as William Bennett (who recently broadcast
his opinion that abortion could solve the problem of crime) the Avance
program of Texas proves once again that statistical trends do not
dictate either destiny or human nature.

Children from the Avance peer group who are NOT provided
with these services will be, "5 times more likely to commit crimes by
age 27, 10 times more likely to be delinquent by age 16, and 4 times
more likely to be convicted of crime while in high school." But as we
can see, these differences in outcome are attributable to supplies of
resources, not to any innate characteristics of the birth populations.

For
more information on the difference that community resources can make in
a child’s chances of life, see the "Avance Works" tab at the
organization’s web site.

For state policy makers who would
empower education to make a difference, the National Council of State
Legislators references a 2004 report with specific policy choices:

Note: this is the testimony of the passenger who leaped the
fence. He admits that he was selling marijuana to [X name
withheld by editor] while under surveillance by undercover cops.

After doing so, we left and were headed to [D’s name withheld by
editor] house. He lives off Honey Bee Bend. On the way over
to [D’s] house, the three of us were smoking a blunt, marijuana.
We had smoked a couple of blunts. We were on Quicksilver and S.
Pleasant Valley when I noticed a car behind us. I had not been
paying attention and did not realize that it was a police officer
behind us. I then saw an undercover car drive onto Quick Silver
and then backed up and got in front of the Suburban that we were
in. I told [E name withheld by editor] and Daniel that I was
leaving. By that I meant that I was going to take off.

[E] was driving, I was in the front passenger seat, and Daniel Rocha
was in the back seat sitting in the center. I immediately opened
the door and ran out. I started to jump the fence when I heard
the officer call me by my name and say "Stop Ricky". I remember
looking back and seeing Daniel’s face looking at me….

Signed June 30, 2005