AUSTIN, Texas _ A Travis County grand jury on Tuesday will begin reviewing the violent arrest of Austin teacher Breaion King before deciding whether to indict Officer Bryan Richter on charges of assault or official oppression.
The arrest, which occurred in June 2015, had received little scrutiny until three months ago, when the American-Statesman and KVUE-TV obtained video from Richter's patrol car that showed the encounter quickly and dramatically escalating when King was stopped for speeding.
The 12-member grand jury, seated by state District Judge Cliff Brown, is expected to review the case for at least two weeks. The panel was randomly selected from registered voters in Travis County.
Attorneys for Richter and King confirmed Monday that their clients are scheduled to testify.
"Ms. King is grateful that the district attorney's office has chosen to bring officer Richter's behavior to the attention of the grand jury," said King's attorney, Erica Grigg. "Whatever the outcome may be, that officer Richter's actions will be examined by a group of people from the community brings Ms. King comfort."
Richter's lawyer, Grant Goodwin, said he is confident his client will not be indicted.
"I firmly believe once the grand jury knows the facts and applies the law, my client will be no-billed," he said.
It is highly unusual for grand jurors to indict officers in use-of-force cases. Prosecutors say they typically do not seek to influence the panel to issue an indictment or no-bill, but rather present evidence, witnesses and laws that govern the officer's conduct.
In Travis County, grand juries review police shootings to determine whether the officers should face charges. But prosecutors can also ask a grand jury to review other police use-of-force cases. According to records from the Travis County District Attorney's Office, that has happened three times since Jan. 30, 2012. All three times, the grand jurors declined to indict the officers.
The last time an officer was indicted in a fatal shooting was in May 2013, when former Detective Charles Kleinert was indicted on a manslaughter charge in the death of Larry Jackson. A federal judge dismissed that case, which is on appeal.
In King's arrest, the patrol car video shows the traffic stop escalating rapidly in the seven seconds from when Richter, who is white, first commands the 26-year-old King, who is black, to close her car door to when he forcibly removes her from the driver's seat, pulls her across a vacant parking space and hurls her to the asphalt.
Richter has said that he didn't know if King had a weapon and that she resisted by wrapping her arms around the steering wheel of the car.
Minutes later, as King was being taken to jail, Officer Patrick Spradlin and King discussed race relations and interactions between police and African-Americans, and Spradlin made comments about the "violent tendencies" of blacks.
Richter's supervisors reviewed the incident at the time and reprimanded him _ the lowest form of departmental discipline. Spradlin's comments went unnoticed until the Statesman's report.
More than a year later, felony prosecutors began reviewing the case in mid-July but intensified their investigation after Richter's patrol car video became public. The Austin Police Department's special investigations unit also has aided the review, interviewing witnesses and collecting related evidence, including Richter's history with the department.
Under state law, an officer commits official oppression if he or she "intentionally subjects another to mistreatment or to arrest, detention, search, seizure, dispossession, assessment, or lien that he knows is unlawful." The crime is punishable by up to a year in jail.
The law defines a simple assault as "physical contact with another when the person knows or should reasonably believe that the other will regard the contact as offensive or provocative."
King is also suing in federal court. Her lawsuit against the city was recently dismissed after a judge told her attorneys to clarify their allegations, and they plan to refile the case. Richter remains a defendant in that pending case.
The city has hired outside attorneys to help fight the suit.
