Man Comes forward with Account of Police Shooting

06:25 PM CDT on Friday, June 8, 2007

By JIM BERGAMO
KVUE News

Funeral services for a man killed by an Austin police officer were held Friday morning. Family and friends gathered to remember Kevin Brown, 25.

Antoine Thompson says he saw what happened after Kevin Brown’s shooting death (see video).

He was fatally shot twice in the back, according to preliminary autopsy reports from the Travis County Medical Examiner’s office, after running from police at Chester’s Night Club in East Austin early Sunday morning.

Meanwhile, at the headquarters of the Texas Civil Rights Project, a man recounted the moments after the shooting.

“I heard the gentleman say, ‘I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die,’” said Antoine Thompson, witness.

Thompson claims to have arrived on the scene moments after Brown had been shot by Sgt. Michael Olsen. He told reporters he was in a nearby apartment, heard the gunshots and raced downstairs. But he says when he got there, police roughed him up, threw him to the ground, breaking the gold bridge on his tooth.

Thompson, who admits he’s been arrested before, says he was taken to Central Booking.

He met a relative of Brown’s there who told Thompson that Brown had been killed by an Austin police officer. When Thompson said he mentioned that he had just been at the scene, he says sheriff’s deputies roughed him up. He says his blood pressure became so high — a nurse at central booking advised he be taken to Brackenridge Hospital. Once released from the hospital, he found he had also been released from custody. Thompson said he went back to the apartments, found a homicide detective and told him he wanted to give a statement. Only then Thompson says, did police listen to what he had to say. But he still believes their initial reaction was to keep him from being a witness.

“I think they was trying to put their story together and come up with a legitimate excuse to try to get away with this one,” he said.

“This is part of the problem with the lack of transparency in the investigation, is that it raises all these suspicions,” said Jim Harrington, Texas Civil Rights Project director. “But one of the suspicions is they simply wanted to get him off of the scene.”

On the same day Thompson came forward, the president of the Austin Police Association said he is not happy with comments Acting Police Chief Cathy Ellison made Thursday about the preliminary autopsy results showing Brown had been shot twice in the back.

“There are a few out there who do not trust and the police and will not trust the police,” said Sgt. Jim Beck, president of the Austin Police Association. “So comments like these about a rush to judgment or even a speculation that there is policy violation here, without releasing the facts, will only inflame that distrust that’s already lingering out there with some in the community.”

The Travis County sheriff’s office says it does not have any record of Thompson’s arrest, but they say they plan to at surveillance tapes to verify Thompson’s account of what happened.

Sgt. Michael Olsen is on restricted duty pending an internal and grand jury investigation.

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Witnesses Come Forth In Brown’s Shooting Death

June 8, 2007 10:32 PM CDT

KXAN spoke Friday with three men who said they were witnesses to Kevin Brown’s shooting death.

One said he saw the aftermath of the shooting, and the other two said they were in the parking lot for what happened before the shooting.

“There was motorcycles lined up right here,” said Corey Roberts. “Kevin was up against the car right here. Me and my friend were sitting right here.”

Roberts and Darius Lovings said they were both at Chester’s Club and witnessed the last moments of Brown’s life.

“Why do you think Kevin ran in the first place?” asked KXAN’s Sally Hernandez.

“Really ma’am, I don’t know,” Roberts said.

“Are you guys afraid of cops around here?” Hernandez asked.

“Ma’am, of course! Of course, we afraid of cops around here, every single day,” Roberts said.

“I was the last person who spoke to him before he was even approached,” Lovings said.

“Kevin comes, he shakes hands with my homeboys, with me, now he’s walking back in this position, and the laws are where you are,” Roberts described. “Kevin stops, and they say, ‘Come here, sir,’ and they grab him. He resisted arrest, and he takes off running. He ran around the Escort, shot behind the mobile thing and ran straight through there.”

Brown escaped in the direction of the Elm Ridge Apartment complex, over a fence.

“All I heard was shots,” Roberts said. “Boom, boom, boom, boom.”

Antoine Thompson, who sat by Texas Civil Right Project’s attorney Jim Harrington, said he was inside one of the apartments and heard the same thing.

“I was, like, ‘Those gunshots are too close,’ so I got up, and I went to the back bedroom window,” Thompson said. “I looked out the window. I saw an officer sitting on top of a gentleman, and I heard the gentleman say, ‘I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die.’ He said it, like, three times.

“He was handcuffed,” Thompson added.

Thompson said he then ran outside to see what was going on, and was pushed away, arrested and taken to jail for interfering with an officer.

His attorney said there were no records of his arrest.

KXAN learned Friday that investigators will have a re-enactment of Kevin Brown’s shooting before presenting findings to jurors.

Six days into the probe of an officer-involved shooting death, and there was no word on when the grand jury might get the case.

Austin Police Department’s Internal Affairs Department awaited the final autopsy report, and Sgt. Michael Olsen turned in his gun until the investigation is complete.

Preliminary autopsy results show he shot and killed Kevin Brown, 25, twice in the back.

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Shooting Witness Says APD Beat Him Up and Threw him in Jail

Last Edited: Friday, 08 Jun 2007, 9:49 PM CDT

Created: Friday, 08 Jun 2007, 9:47 PM CDT

AUSTIN — There are charges today that Austin Police went to great lengths to remove a possible witness to the deadly shooting of 25-year-old Kevin Brown by an Austin Police sergeant. FOX 7′s Mike Rosen talked to a man who says he heard brown yell for his life, went to see what was going on, then was beat up and thrown in jail.