'Justice for Josh': Calls for release of officer's body camera footage in Joshua Wright death grow

SAN MARCOS — Calls for the release of body camera footage that depicts the last moments of Hays County inmate Joshua Wright’s life, and whether he attacked a Hays County deputy, resulting in his death, continue to swell among the Hays County community almost a month after the incident.

For weeks, Hays County’s top elected officials have urged local law enforcement to provide swift answers to the public. On Monday afternoon, those calls grew louder as Wright’s family and friends were joined by nationally recognized civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represented the families of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and local attorney Chevo Pastrano in front of the Ulysses Cephas House in San Marcos.

“We want the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help us, God,” Crump said. “This case is about trust here in the San Marcos community. It's about transparency leading to truth and accountability, and then we can have trust that no matter who we are that we get equal justice under the law.”

Joshua Leon Wright, 36, was fatally shot at Ascension Seton Hays Hospital in Kyle on Dec. 12.

The initial statement from authorities provided few details but did allege that Wright first assaulted the officer and then began running through the emergency room where he was being treated.

The corrections officer then shot Wright, but authorities did not say in their statement whether he was armed or how he posed a threat to others in the hospital.

Charley Wilkison, executive director of the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas, said in a tweet last month that Wright had grabbed sharp medical instruments and had begun running toward hospital staffers and civilians when the officer shot him.

But the next day, Wilkison deleted his tweet, retweeting a nearly identical statement but changing "grabbed" to "moved toward."

However, Pastrano said Monday that law enforcement’s story does not add up.

More:Questions persist after shooting of jail inmate at Kyle hospital. Here's what we know.

He said Wright had been taken to the hospital early that morning and was handcuffed and shackled. While there, Pastrano said, Wright had to use the bathroom, so his handcuffs were removed, but the shackles remained around his ankles.

While in the restroom, a short scuffle and a push happened between Wright and the officer before Wright tried to run from the emergency room and was shot in the back, Pastrano said. An independent autopsy, which was requested by the family, revealed that the Wright was shot at least six times, and one of those bullets went through his spinal cord and would have paralyzed him, yet the officer continued to shoot him, Pastrano said.

“There is no excuse or reasonable explanation why a man in shackles should ever be fired upon even once,” Pastrano said. “There are less lethal ways to stop a man from running away in shackles. We are here because we want to discover the truth. We want justice for Joshua, and the one way that we will be able to do this is by being able to view that video.”

The call for transparency and release of the video comes three weeks after the incident occurred. In Austin, police policy is to try to provide such footage within 10 business days after lethal force is used — but it is not a practice commonly followed by neighboring jurisdictions, including Hays County.

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Hays County Sheriff Gary Cutler told the Statesman that the Texas Rangers are investigating the case to determine whether criminal charges should be filed, which is standard for when a law enforcement officer uses deadly force.

He also said the agency's office of professional responsibility is investigating the incident to learn whether the officer violated any departmental policies.

Cutler said he plans to meet soon with the Rangers to determine what — if any — information, including videos, will be released or whether doing so would interfere with the investigations.

Texas law sets out legal standards for using deadly force among corrections officers in a correctional institution.

"(A) guard employed by a correctional facility or a peace officer is justified in using any force, including deadly force, that he reasonably believes to be immediately necessary to prevent the escape of a person from the correctional facility," the law states.

A key issue in the Hays County case probably will be whether a hospital could be considered a correctional institution because Wright was in custody at the time.

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The officer, who has not been publicly identified by the sheriff’s office, was placed on administrative leave until the investigation is complete.

State investigations of in-custody deaths have drawn skepticism recently. A New York Times article last year about the Texas Rangers looked into 29 cases since 2015 in which a person stopped breathing after a tussle with local authorities. None of those cases led prosecutors to charge anyone within law enforcement. Furthermore, shortcuts, missteps or judgment calls that could point toward a mishandling of the case occurred in two-thirds of the cases, according to the article.

Wright was a pretrial detainee at the Hays County Jail, meaning he was charged with crimes but had not had his day in court. He was accused of unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, bail jumping, failure to appear, reckless driving, criminal mischief, and evading arrest and detention, according to the sheriff's office.

His mother, Beverly Wright, descried him as a gentle giant, adding that he struggled with some things and wasn’t perfect, “but he was my son.”

“Why did they have to kill my baby boy is what I want to know,” she said Monday. “I want to know why. If it was his fault, I can accept it. But show us the video.”

Staff writer Tony Plohetski contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Family wants body camera footage released in Hays Co. hospital death