HOUSTON — Family members and civil rights activists are outraged after the four Houston police officers who killed a man in 2020 were reinstated earlier this week.
They said Nicholas Chavez was suffering from a mental health crisis when he was shot 21 times in April 2020. Authorities said Chavez was holding a piece of rebar and had grabbed a Taser that had already been discharged when the officers opened fire. Then-Police Chief Art Acevedo fired the officers after the shooting, saying at the time, "The discharge of those 21 shots by four of those members are not objectionably reasonable."
Last September, a Harris County grand jury determined that criminal charges were not warranted in the shooting.
Now, Chavez's father is demanding justice for his 27-year-old son.
"They killed a man, a father, a son without any regard. Two years later, they get their job back," Nicholas Chavez's father, Joaquin Chavez, said. "It's senseless to have them back in uniform doing a job they failed at in the first place."
Houston Police Chief Troy Finner said the officers appealed and an independent arbitrator sided with them after determining there wasn't proof that they violated department policies. Finner said he respected the decision but doesn't necessarily agree with it.
"It's a difficult time, as I've stated, for the Chavez family, our department and our community," Finner said. "I just want everybody to be respectful, everybody has differences of opinion but let's all respect the process and let's have some time for healing."
The Greater Houston Coalition for Justice condemned the decision and they're asking the United States Justice Department to step in and investigate.
The family said it feels like it was left in the dark and doesn't know how the decision was made. They also said they weren't consulted during the process.
A protest of the officers' reinstatements is planned for Wednesday in front of Houston Police Department headquarters at 5 p.m.
Finner said the officers will get back pay and will undergo reintegration training since they've been away from the department for nearly two years.
What happened the night Nicholas Chavez was shot?
Police had responded to several 911 calls the night of April 21, 2020, about a possibly suicidal man running in and out of traffic in east Houston.
Chavez was armed with a piece of rebar which officers said they believed was a knife. For the next 15 minutes, bodycam videos show the officers trying to de-escalate the situation.
While on his knees, Chavez grabbed a Taser that had already discharged both cartridges and pointed it at the officers. The officers then fired 21 shots, killing him.
“This individual kept coming towards the officers, refusing commands to drop the knife, drop the weapon," Acevedo said after the shooting.
Officers fired
Acevedo fired the officers five months later, a decision that was criticized by the Houston Police Officer's Union. In a tweet, the union said Acevedo's decision to fire the officers was "unjust and deplorable."
“It was clear when viewing the video that these officers did not want to shoot Mr. Chavez and did everything in their power not to,” President of the Houston Police Officers Union Joe Gamaldi said at the time.
He said the city’s Independent Police Oversight Board, which includes civilians, unanimously agreed the shooting was justified.
At the time, Acevedo said the officers didn't need to fire 21 times.
“It’s objectively not reasonable when a man’s been shot multiple times, shown he can’t get up, quite frankly it’s inexplicable to me when they had plenty of opportunity to back up and stay the line, shoot a man 21 times. I can’t defend that,” Acevedo said.
In March 2021, Chavez's family filed a $100 million lawsuit against the Houston Police Department, the City of Houston and five police officers, accusing the officers of violating Chavez’s due process. The lawsuit has since been dismissed.