A grand jury has indicted an Austin, Texas, police officer on a first-degree murder charge in the fatal shooting of 42-year-old Michael Brent Ramos in April, Travis County District Attorney José Garza said Thursday.
The case against Austin Police Department Officer Christopher Taylor is the first known indictment of a city police officer for a use-of-force incident, Garza said in a statement. The same grand jury declined to indict another officer for aggravated assault by a public servant for discharging a bean bag round before the fatal shooting, according to Garza. CNN has reached out to the officer’s attorney for comment. Ramos was fatally shot on April 24, 2020, after police responded to a 911 call about a man allegedly doing drugs in a car with a gun, Police Chief Brian Manley said at the time. The death led to street protests against police brutality. The car Ramos was in matched the description of a car that was involved in an incident with police, Manley said. Ramos got out of the car and did not follow police commands, according to Manley. After one officer fired a less lethal bean bag round, Ramos, allegedly got back in the car and started to drive off, the police chief said. Another officer then fatally shot Ramos, Manley said. The police chief later said no firearm was found in or around Ramos’s car when a search warrant was executed two days after the shooting, the Austin American-Statesman reported last year. « Today we have taken a significant step towards justice for the Ramos family and for our community, » Garza said in a statement. « My heart continues to break for the Ramos family and we still have much work ahead of us, but we know that holding law enforcement accountable when they break the law is critical to restoring the trust of our community and to ensuring its safety. » Ramos’s mother, Brenda, said of the indictment Thursday: « I feel good but there’s still a long ways to go.
