MeKnowNot said:

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AgProgrammer said:

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...and if we don't hear back from you, we're going to bust into your house? Nevermind that they literally found absolutely no illegal activity in this raid and none of the people in the house were actually in the warrant or were suspects. Our bad.

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This edit should handle your concern and make CSTX a safer place for everyone. We got this!:


P.S. Please disregard this If this letter was received in error and/or you believe that you are not doing anything against the law.

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Maybe there is some middle ground between that and killing me.

Let's not lose sight if the fact that the warrant was a sham. CSPD busted down a door and killed a kid because of false information.

The College Station Police horrifically bunked an operation that killed a man. They committed a far graver crime. The leaders and those on the scene should go to prison for at minimum 2 years. They all should be fired. This is a travesty of justice. Plus they are trying to cover their mistakes up and hide it from public scrutiny. This is called corruption folks. It's far worse for those representing justice to be the ones committing the crimes.


[You can give your opinion on this board but do it in a respectful manner. -Staff]

I wouldn't fault the officer who fired the shots. They were just doing what they were told (unless something else happened). I think the Texas Rangers investigation was only in the scope of investigating if the officer who fired the shots did anything wrong. It did not investigate the whole operation/warrant, etc.

I think the initial fault lies on who developed this plan and ordered it to go forward with incorrect/incomplete information. There was a very obvious breakdown in their information that lead to the final order to proceed.

The next round of fault goes on whoever is working to hide what happened or giving out incorrect information about what happened in an effort to try and make it go away. A publicly funded city police department should have to answer to the public about what happened in the city limits to one of their citizens. They don't just get to say "none of your business what we did...go away".

No one is saying to defund the police but I do expect them to be transparent to their citizens. Is that too much to ask or should we allow them to just do whatever they want without any oversight?

Quote:

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Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.

Thomas Jefferson

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I support our military and police. I also expect that they operate within the rule of law and do not afford them any other latitudes than those given to every common citizen. Asking that police operate within the law is not equal to "defunding the police" or any other poppycock. It's simply asking those in public employ to be good stewards of our tax dollars by operating above board and within the law. My 2c

One of the downsides to the City's response to the situation is that citizens are not able to know what solid accountability and remedy would look like.

I am getting the impression City leadership is betting that the story will blow over.

If the story does not blow over, I believe those on the ground (but possibly not mostly responsible) are effectively being thrown under the bus. Leadership will likely be left untouched, though. So I can see why they are willing to take that risk.

Officer Norris told Texas Rangers:

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On February 8, 2023, at approximately 0600 hours, I, Officer Dakota Norris, along with other officers of the College Station Police Department SWAT team, was serving a high-risk narcotics SWAT search warrant at 925 Spring Loop, College Station, Brazos County, Texas.

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From what information we have, it appears the statement by Officer Norris was not true. Investigators (and any reasonable person who read the warrant) had to have known that this was an invalid warrant and the search was unlikely to find any evidence.

Further, it was not designated a "no-knock" by the magistrate and there was no reason to believe any of the residents were dangerous. So the search execution was required to abide by knock-and-announce requirements. There was no excuse for it to be executed as "a high-risk narcotics SWAT search."

Did Norris make that up; did he and the others know they were busting into a house without cause? Or did someone up the chain concoct a lie that lead to this cluster-mess? Or was it terrible policies and procedures that led an invalid search warrant to get telephone-gamed into a deadly "high-risk narcotics SWAT search" complete with breaches, flashbang, and kicking in bedroom doors? Should investigators have known that their invalid warrant was going to be executed so dangerously?

There are many questions yet to be answered. City leadership appears to intentionally be avoiding looking into the matter, possibly to avoid creating records which would then have to be disclosed through open-government rules.

Since the City is unwilling to disclose (or apparently investigate) what happened to lead to this SNAFU, people are left guessing who is responsible. Since people are left guessing, it is (I think) unfortunate but understandable that some are going to assume that the people who breached the door, deployed the flashbang, and shot Hopkins in the face after kicking in his bedroom door at 6am were responsible for this senseless and wholly avoidable killing.


Also, there has been some discussion about the possibility CSPD was looking for Escobar at the Spring Loop apartment. From what I have read and from my discussions with CSPD, it looks like that was a story that only got seeded to the media after it became clear that the search warrant (indicating CSPD was looking for evidence, not Escobar) was invalid.

I am open to evidence to the contrary, but from what I have seen and been told, I suspect the "CSPD was trying to get Escobar" story was just a halfhearted attempt to change the narrative. I have not seen anything indicating there was an expectation for Escobar to be at the house other than the fact that he was not at any of the other places searched that morning. His truck wasn't there, CSPD knew he occasionally left town, etc. so they didn't have any reason to think he would be there. It was probably just a story thrown out after it became clear the situation was as bad as it was.

The city and police owe it's residents an explanation when an innocent is killed at their hand.

It appears the residents aren't going to get that thru normal means (e.g. traditional media), and might not ever if it eventually fades away here.

That's not good government for the people.

Brian Alg said:

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Even if the judge signed the warrant in error, I don't see how he would be in trouble. My understanding is absolute judicial immunity is pretty solid.

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Judges have ABSOLUTE immunity as long as they are acting within their judicial duties. LE has only qualified immunity.

The video can and should be withheld until the case or investigation is over. Here, the investigation was to determine if the officer committed a crime by shooting the deceased. Once the officer was No Billed by the Grand Jury I cannot think of a legal reason why the video should be withheld.

Of course, I don't know the ins and outs of the drug investigation. But it seems that withholding the video because of the drug investigation, when no drugs were found at that location and no arrests were made of people present at that location, is very tenuous.

KBTX did a "1 year ago this happened" story.

https://www.kbtx.com/2024/02/08/unanswered-questions-family-marks-one-year-since-officer-involved-shooting-college-station/

In that year, I have learned:

This was not, by any reasonable stretch, a knock and announce search warrant execution. Police banged on the door and yelled for 15 seconds then proceeded to bust in, deploy a flashbang, and kick in Hopkins' bedroom door. This all occurred at 6am within something like 30 seconds. There appears to have been no intention to allow Hopkins or any of his roommates to cooperate with police.

The warrant was invalid. No reasonable person could have believed there was adequate indicia of probable cause in the affidavit.

KBTX asked the City about a questionable detail in the warrant. The City refused to make a substantial comment at that time. Only 8 months later, after the family's petition indicated the detail was unambiguously false, did the City acknowledge that the warrant's assertion that Hopkins was sent money by the suspect was not true.

CSPD first denied the existence of a document (the "Operations Plan") that might indicate how an invalid knock and announce search became a "high-risk narcotics SWAT search warrant." They have since acknowledged the existence of that document, but are blocking open records access. From what I have received, it does not look like Texas Rangers had the Operations Plan to use in their investigation.

CSPD never performed its own internal investigation into the shooting to see how this got so botched. They apparently only relied on the Texas Rangers investigation which appears to have not had full access to CSPD documents and seems to have had a very limited scope, only looking at the minute before the shooting and not the decisions, investigation, and warrant that led to CSPD performing a needlessly dangerous and unlawful search at the apartment.

Edit: I said "relied." But it is worth noting that when the City put out a statement indicating they were confident in the findings of the Texas Rangers' report, they apparently did not know what those findings were. According to ORR response, did not have any records relating to the Texas Rangers investigation. So it is better to say that they relied on the assumption that there was a Texas Rangers investigation. The City did not rely on the investigation itself.

The big thing:

• Investigators sent a SWAT team to perform a search using a warrant they almost certainly knew to be invalid
• Police performed the search in a needlessly dangerous fashion instead of allowing occupants a reasonable opportunity to cooperate with CSPD
• Municipal court judge, appointed by CoCS City Council, almost certainly failed to carefully review the warrant before rubber stamping it

All 3 things that the city council has oversight over. If any of them had gone right, Hopkins would be alive today. In my discussions with the City, after emails to Council and phone calls and meetings with staff, I have been given the impression that there is zero interest in determining how this s*** show happened and what can be made better.

Let's see the video.

Thanks for the update.

It feels like this only goes as far as the family is willing.

There is innocent blood on the hands of many at CSPD and CoCS. Just going about their life.

I read what they found! It was only marijuana after all! Unreal.

I'll say it again. Kid thought he was the victim of a home invasion, and was killed by CSPD.

That alone should spark investigation, not coverups.

In previous posts, I had relayed assertions made by the City to the State AG's Office in their attempt to block my access to records for "Internal Affairs files related to the City's investigation of the events and actions leading to the shooting at 925 Spring Loop on February 8th as well as the shooting itself and the aftermath."

The City claimed that the only responsive file they had was an "internal record or notation of a law enforcement agency or prosecutor that is maintained for internal use in matters relating to law enforcement or prosecution" that "relates only to an investigation that did not result in conviction or deferred adjudication." and therefore was exempt from ORR requirements via 552.108(b)(2)

It turned out that the assertion made by the City was false.

The document that they were saying only related to a criminal investigation was a "College Station Police Department Informational Memorandum" that was dated October 11, 2023. That is roughly 6 months after Officer Norris was no-billed. Further, Officer Norris' Notice of Administrative Leave specifically notes "[t]he administrative investigation is conducted separately from any criminal investigation..."

I have trouble believing this was an error made in good faith.

Within the memo, there is information that CSPD was not truthful when they claimed "No Records Exist" that were responsive to my request for reports CSPD had from the Texas Rangers/DPS.

I would echo the cliche that "the cover up is always worse than the crime", but in this case the cover up just looks really bad and causes people to distrust the city.

The cover up didn't KILL anybody.

maroon barchetta said:

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The cover up didn't KILL anybody.

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But the cover up perpetuates the behavior, which means it is only a matter of time before it happens again. I've heard of zero changes in police policy or practice that came as a result of this tragedy. I've heard only justification.

In my opinion, the extreme avoidance of liability is preventing the issue from being addressed. I think they don't want to create memos or training to fix it because it will be public record and be viewed as an admission of guilt. Which is the opposite of what they should be doing.

This is disgusting.

And yet we continue to have people tell us to trust every single thing each leadership group in this area decides or tells us and don't dare question it or you are just a negative Nancy.