Austin police body camera footage released Wednesday shows an officer deploying a Taser against a bleeding, shirtless man within seconds of officers moving to handcuff him, a use of force that preceded the man’s death and is now under criminal and administrative review.
The man, identified by police as 32-year-old Josh Ryan Trumble, died Saturday evening after officers responded to reports of a man bleeding, acting erratically and trying to get into homes in North Austin. The Austin Police Department released body camera footage, 911 calls, police radio traffic and Ring camera footage during a Wednesday news conference.
The footage appears to show Officer Justin Wright using his Taser almost immediately after Trumble, who was lying on the ground in the front yard of a home in the 7600 block of Grover Avenue, pulled his hands beneath his body while officers tried to restrain him. The video raises questions about whether officers gave the situation enough time to unfold before using force on a man police themselves described as possibly experiencing a medical or psychological crisis.
Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis defended the officers’ actions Wednesday while acknowledging the department would review the incident for possible lessons on how officers are trained to use Tasers and the policies governing their use.
“I believe that tasing was appropriate,” Davis said. “But if it’s not, or if there’s a way that we can learn from that, that’s exactly what we are going to do.”
Police said the case is being investigated as an in-custody death because Trumble died after being detained by officers. The department’s Special Investigations Unit is conducting a criminal investigation in conjunction with the Travis County district attorney’s office. A separate administrative investigation is being conducted by APD’s Internal Affairs Unit with oversight from Austin Police Oversight.
The officers involved have been placed on administrative leave, which police said is standard protocol. They were identified Wednesday as Wright, Kate Hagemeier, Carl Chester, Jeremmy Santos Beltre, Calvin Fusilier, Gabriella Fekete and Benjamin Ye. Their department tenure ranges from nine months to more than seven years.
Their encounter with Trumble followed a series of 911 calls that began about 5:42 p.m. Saturday, nearly an hour before his death.
In the recordings released Wednesday, callers reported a bleeding, shirtless man in long shorts behaving erratically. They said he had broken a vehicle window and was attempting to enter homes and flag down passing vehicles.
Officers arrived about 6:35 p.m. and found Trumble lying in a front yard with numerous lacerations, police said. Body camera footage shows several officers approaching as sirens can be heard in the background.
An officer orders Trumble to roll onto his stomach, and he complies. Officers then tell him to place his hands behind his head and remain still. Again, he complies. Officers then direct Trumble to extend his arms outward “like an airplane” so they can handcuff him.
As officers reach for his arms, the encounter escalates almost immediately. Video from Santos Beltre’s body camera shows officers grabbing for Trumble’s arms. Seconds later, before any prolonged struggle develops, Wright deploys his Taser.
Trumble cries out.
A second body camera angle from Wright shows a similarly brief sequence with an officer ordering Trumble to, “Relax or you’re gonna get tased.” Moments later, Wright fires the Taser.
The footage shows officers moving on top of Trumble after the Taser deployment to place him in handcuffs. As they restrain him, his breathing becomes increasingly labored. He can be heard grunting and screaming before he appears to stop moving and becomes silent.
Officers roll him onto his side and begin assessing his condition. Davis said officers soon noticed a change in Trumble’s condition and requested that EMS expedite its response. Officers checked for a pulse and began CPR.
According to Davis, Wright deployed the Taser after Trumble moved his hands underneath his body and pushed up against Ye, who was attempting to handcuff him, and other officers trying to restrain him.
Police accountability advocates, who previously raised concerns about the incident, disagreed with Davis’ characterization of the use of force as “appropriate.”
“The chief’s justification of this killing underscores why our city desperately needs civilian oversight of police, independent from the chief, in order to provide transparency and accountability for police conduct that betrays the values of our community,” said Savannah Lee, director of policy and operations for Equity Action.
But two law enforcement training experts who reviewed the body camera footage and other materials told the American-Statesman that they believe the officers acted appropriately and praised the response.
“I thought it was rather textbook,” said Kevin Davis, who has trained officers nationally for decades and was the 2019 Trainer of the Year for the National Law Enforcement Hall of Fame. “They stayed their distance, they slowed things down, but obviously they have to control him.”
He said using the Taser allowed officers to avoid prolonging the encounter between Trumble and police before he was under arrest.
“I just thought it was a minimal use of force, it was professional, they were communicating the entire time,” Davis said. “I thought it was unfortunately tragic.”
Sean McCann, a criminal justice professor at Napa Valley College in California who has trained police officers for 28 years in arrest procedures, said, “I didn’t see anything wrong with the police work there. They had to get him into handcuffs, which they did.”
He said the use of the Taser based on Trumble’s actions “was consistent with industry standards.”
“He was not a small guy,” McCann said.
Austin-Travis County EMS and Austin Fire Department personnel continued resuscitation efforts for about 38 minutes before Trumble was pronounced dead at the scene at 7:18 p.m., Chief Davis said.
The Travis County Medical Examiner’s Office has not determined Trumble’s cause of death. Investigators are awaiting autopsy and toxicology results. The American-Statesman has requested a copy of the autopsy report.
Karole Latham, Trumble’s mother, said her son attended Redwater High School in Texarkana, where he was a star football player, and graduated in 2012. Over the past decade, she said he worked in Houston and Austin doing welding and sheet metal work.
She said nothing she knew about her son was consistent with the circumstances she had learned about his death.
“He was a great kid,” Latham said. “He was a good person and he did not deserve to die like this. He has a huge family that loves him.”