Texas cops said they were only trying to help a man whom they ended up killing.
The incident took place Saturday after the Luling Police Department responded to a call of someone banging on doors, throwing rocks at imaginary people and yelling out that people were trying to kill him.
When police arrived, Andrew Carmona, 36, leaped into the back of their patrol car, which was when officers dragged him out, searched him for weapons and let him back into the squad car.
Carmona’s sister then arrived at the scene and told officers that “someone had called her and told her he had left his mother’s house and was acting crazy,” according to the press release by Luling Police Chief Bill Sala.
Officers took Carmona back to his mother’s house where he remained in the back of the officer’s patrol car.
While the officers were speaking with his mother, Alice Laris, she pointed out that Carmona was jumping around in the back of the vehicle and yelling.
“When they opened the door, he said, ‘see, see? They’re trying to kill me.’ After that they grabbed him and threw him on the ground,” Laris said according KXAN.
After struggle happened, which ended with Carmona laying stomach down handcuffed.
This is where reports of the incident vary.
The family took to social media stating that one of the officers put their full body weight on Carmona’s back while the other held his neck down.
“I told them he’s foaming, he can’t breathe, y’all are pressing him too much,” Laris recalled to KXAN, “Officers told me to get back and I told them that he was foaming.”
Carmona’s family said the cops piled their weight on him until he could no longer breathe.
“The officers held his legs to keep him from kicking them and rolled him off and that is when they noticed the foaming of the mouth and immediately performed CPR and failed to revive him,” according to the Press Release.
An autopsy has been ordered which will show if he was having a mental illness or if drugs were involved.
One family member went to Facebook and wrote that he was on medicine and that his father recently passed away.
Both officers involved have not been placed on administrative leave.
We reached out to Luling Police Chief Bill Sala and requested for audio of the 911 call as well as body camera footage, but he said he was unable to release it because the incident is under investigation by his own department with oversight by the Caldwell County District Attorney’s Office and the Texas Rangers.
Sala also advised that a full report of this incident must be forwarded to the office of the Texas Attorney General within 30 days as per Code of Criminal Procedure, Section 49.18 (b).
