Trial for Police Killing of 14 Year old Eli Escobar Begins in Houston
Monday, September 20, 2004 at 04:13PM
TheSpook
A former Houston police officer is set to go on trial
Monday for the high profile death of a teenager. Arthur Carbonneau is
accused of shooting and killing 14 year old Eli Escobar in November of
last year.Jose Sanchez says police came to talk to him about a fight he
was in earlier in the day. He says his friend Eli was not involved in
that attack and that he tried to leave. That's when officers tried to
restrain him and Escobar put up a fight. Sanchez said, "He went crazy.
The cop grabbed him, threw him on the floor. He told him to calm down.
He wouldn't and he just shot him in the head." Sanchez says Escobar did
nothing to warrant the use of deadly force. Neighbor Patricia Ulmer
agrees. She watched the shooting from the balcony just above, and says
it looked like the officer deliberately wanted to kill the boy."It was
so unnecessary." Another eyewitness Jesse Rodriguez had accompanied the cops to the scene
after reporting that another youth had punched his son. "They ignored
me when I was telling them who had assaulted my son," he said. "They
were too busy roughing up Eli, who didn't have anything to do with the
assault." Rodriguez said that as the cops seized Escobar, "he was
saying, "Help me! Help me! I didn't do anything. What did I do?' They
had no mercy on him, no compassion." "They're killing our children,"
added Diane Bossom of Copwatch, an anti-police brutality organization. [more ] and [more ] and [more ]
The Houston Police slaying of Eli Escobar
should not be confused with the Houston Police killing of Jose Vargas
Jr., - a 15 year old teenager-- who was shot down by police a month
earlier on 10/31/2003 [more ]
Town hall urges more police accountability [more ]
Article originally appeared on (http://brownwatch.com/).
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