Grand
Jury
Fails
to
Indict
in
Death
of
Man
Shot
in
Home
10/23/98
On July 12, Pedro Oregon Navarro, a 22 year-old father of two, was shot to death in the bathroom of his home by at least six Houston (TX) police officers. The officers had entered Navarro's home by kicking in his door without a warrant on the word of a drug suspect who told them that there were drugs being sold in the apartment. The suspect was not a registered informant as required by Houston Police Department policy. No drugs were found in the home and, blood tests on Navarro's corpse came back negative. Officers claimed that they believed that Navarro had fired upon them, but ballistics tests showed that all 30 shots were fired by the officers. Twelve of those shots hit Navarro, nine from above and behind him. Of the six officers, five were no-billed by the grand jury while one was charged with a misdemeanor trespass. On Monday (10/19), demonstrators outside of the Harris County Courthouse chanted "No Justice, No Peace," raising concerns that civil unrest might ultimately erupt in Houston much as it did in May, 1978, after Houston officers beat and drowned Joe Campos Torres, a young Vietnam veteran whom they had arrested for public drunkenness. Houston Mayor and former US Drug Czar Lee Brown said on Monday that he will seek a federal grand jury investigation into Navarro's death. Johnny Mata, a spokesman for the League of United Latin American Citizens, told the Houston Chronicle, "We will continue pressing (the Justice Department) on the matter. This is a travesty of justice. We're asking the community to be calm, but there is a lot of outrage." Travis Morales of the Justice for Pedro Oregon Coalition told the Chronicle, "This gives the green light for cops to go into homes and kill. A trespass charge is not going to stop any police officer." In the days following the shooting, Harris County D.A. Johnny Holmes inflamed passions, telling the press that the officers were within their rights to kill Navarro as they believed he was resisting arrest. Al Robison, President of the Drug Policy Forum of Texas, told The Week Online, "This case is a very clear illustration of the insanity of our current drug policy. The Drug War mandates that the state will be kicking in the doors of its citizens. It's time to discuss alternative policies, policies which allow society to control drugs, rather than the warfare between police and communities leading to tragedies such as the death of Pedro Oregon Navarro." A march was scheduled for Thursday afternoon (10/22), to protest the grand jury's decision. City officials were hopeful that cooler heads would prevail and that violence in the streets would be averted.
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