James Brennand was a rookie at the San Antonio police department. He initially claimed that the teen hit him with his car, but that does not appear to be the case in body-cam footage released by the department on Wednesday.
The shooting occurred on Sunday at around 10:30 pm. A 17-year-old-teen, Erik Cantu, was sitting in the driver seat of his car with a female passenger when Brennand approached the vehicle, thinking it was a vehicle that had eluded him the night before and may have been stolen. Without alerting the driver by knocking on the window, Brennand yanked open the door and yelled at the teen to “get out of the car.”
The startled driver appears to put his car into reverse and backs up. Brennand then unloads several shots at the vehicle, striking the 17-year-old multiple times. The driver continued to flee the parking lot and down the street, with Brennand continuing to shoot at the vehicle, before stopping down the street where emergency personnel found and treated him. He remains in critical condition after suffering gunshot wounds. His passenger was unharmed.
The vehicle was not the same vehicle as the one that had escaped Brennand the night before and was not stolen. It does not appear that the vehicle struck Brennand.
A statement released by the San Antonio Police Department stated “that the actions of the probationary officer during this critical incident were in violation of departmental tactics, training, and procedures.”
Cantu was charged by proxy for evading arrest and assaulting an officer. The District Attorney’s Office declined to comment on the still-open investigation and would not say if the charges would be dropped.