Lawyers for the University of Incarnate Word have filed a lengthy and robust defense of UIW police officer Chris Carter who fatally shot unarmed honors student Robert Cameron Redus five times outside his off-campus apartment on December 5.
The university’s rebuttal of the Redus family’s wrongful death lawsuit comes more than one month after settlement talks between the university and family broke down. The family’s lawsuit, which does not seek specific monetary damages, was filed on May 6. UIW’s lawyers, in their counter-pleading, state that if the university is found liable in the student’s death its status as a charitable organization should limit damages to $500,000.
At issue is a tragedy that could rank as the worst in the Catholic university’s 133-year history. Autopsy results disclosed that Redus, a senior honors student who was legally drunk and who had traces of marijuana in his system, was returning home to his off-campus Alamo Heights apartment after a late night of end-of-semester partying at a North St. Mary’s Street Bar. Carter, returning from a 1 a.m. food run to a nearby Whataburger, said he witnessed Redus driving recklessly and apparently under the influence and decided to follow him instead of returning to duty on campus. Carter did not know the driver he was following was a UIW student, but exercised what university officials say was his right as a Texas peace officer.
Why Carter let a drunk driver proceed north from Broadway and Hildebrand all the way through the Alamo Heights commercial corridor without turning on his overhead lights or siren or attempting a traffic stop, has never been explained. The confrontation only unfolded once Redus reached his apartment complex, exited his vehicle, and headed toward his apartment.
Only Carter’s version of what happened next is known. An audio tape of the confrontation exists but has not been released to the family’s attorneys, the media or the public. UIW’s Monday filing portrays Carter locked in a life and death struggle with the unarmed Redus and finally firing his firearm six times because he feared for his own life, although he suffered no apparent injuries in the alleged struggle.
Carter said he fired six times as Redus, his fist upraised and cursing, approached him threateningly as the confrontation continued to unfold, Carter unable to subdue Redus and arrest and handcuff him. Yet the autopsy report asserts Redus was shot once in the back at point-blank range and once in the left eye, also at point-blank range, and at a sharp downward angle with the bullet exiting his neck, as if the victim were positioned well below the officer when the shot was fired. Three other shots that struck Redus were not deemed fatal. A sixth shot missed.
In its pleading Monday, lawyers representing UIW either deny the forensic evidence in the autopsy conducted by the Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office, or simply do not address certain findings that fundamentally contradict Carter’s contemporary account of the shooting. UIW lawyers, for example, state in their response that none of the five shots that hit Redus were fired at point-blank range, despite the coroner reports of powder burns on the student’s shirt. The shot in the back is not addressed.
Rivard Report readers can read the family’s lawsuit (original petition) against the university here and the UIW response here.
“The circumstances of Cameron’s death should at the very least demonstrate the need for changes on the part of the university so that this tragedy can never happen again,” said Mark Hall, a close friend of the Redus family who has served as their spokesman throughout the ordeal. “UIW’s irresponsibly denying those needed changes should strike fear in the hearts of UIW students and the surrounding citizens, fear for their own safety.”
Monday’s UIW filing is not a typical lawsuit response. It offers an extraordinarily detailed, minute-by-minute reconstruction of Carter’s actions leading up to and throughout the confrontation with Redus that ended in his fatal shooting. University lawyers, seeking to justify Carter’s off-campus pursuit, assert that UIW police routinely conduct off-campus patrols of Alamo Heights neighborhoods, without explaining exactly why they do so. The lengthy narrative, which defends and exonerates Carter and justifies his decisions at every turn, will surely raise questions about why such context is emerging only now, six months after the student’s death and only in response to a wrongful death lawsuit.
The autopsy findings and the university defense of Carter and the administration’s unwillingness to revisit controversial campus police procedures have roiled some administrators and faculty, who have privately expressed deep misgivings about the case and the seeming conflict between the institution’s Catholic principles and its legal strategy of limiting liability by not admitting to any wrongdoing. The absence of longtime UIW President Lou Agnese on an extended sabbatical and world cruise with his spouse, Mickey, left many feeling the university was leaderless at a critical juncture and opportunities were lost or ignored to come to terms with the grieving Redus family and bring the tragedy to a close.
One administrator emailed the Rivard Report to privately complain that the university was rudderless and that lawyers were making all the key decisions rather than Catholic educators and leaders.
Student leaders have been outspoken in their criticism of campus police, and of the administration’s unwillingness to address campus police issues. At one town hall meeting with students, a university administrator suggested Carter, who has been on paid administrative leave since the shooting, might be brought back on campus in an administrative position even while he is under investigation for possible criminal violations, a pronouncement that was met with strong protests.
“This is a tragedy on so many levels,” one UIW professor commented Tuesday. “The university hired a rogue cop with a bad track record and won’t admit it. He could have radioed Alamo Heights police that night to track a drunk driver on Broadway and returned to campus with his Whataburger.
He could have let Cameron off with a warning and walked him to his apartment after he parked his car. Instead we have a senseless killing that hangs like a cloud over the university. It never should have happened.”
*Featured/top image: University of the Incarnate Word. Photo by Nan Palmero.
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UIW’s attorneys’ contention that liability is limited to $500,000 is wrong. The very next section of the Civil Practices and Remedies Code states that the $500,000 limit does not apply to recklessly negligent behavior:
“Sec. 84.007. APPLICABILITY. (a) This chapter does not apply to an act or omission that is intentional, wilfully negligent, or done with conscious indifference or reckless disregard for the safety of others.”
Certainly this officer’s behavior falls within the above definition.
After hearing this news I was very upset. As a current UIW student, it’s so hard to support this decision to put all blame on Cameron. I have never tried to deny that Cameron was wrong and made serious mistakes, but did those mistakes warrant his death? I do not think so, and I’m sure many would agree.
The university seems to have been unwilling to examine the situation like they would examine any other problem. If the Library didn’t have quality librarians, they would research and hire new librarians. When it come to examining if their hiring process, training, and oversight of their police after the death of a person, they have largely unresponsive if not defensive. Their decisions have not good for the university and do not seem to be moral ones.
This entire situation has made it hard to reconcile my love for UIW with my anger towards their response since Cameron’s death. While I will continue with my education and love, I will also need to continue with dissent and anger. Building up community pressure, working with student and faculty, and building communicating will help to create real change so that Cameron’s death is not in vain. I personally believe that Carter should be fired and that the university should make serious changes the police department, so that is what we will fight for.
UIW: ruthless “charitable organization” and rudderless with its president on a “world cruise with his spouse”.
The VERY first thing I thought of when hearing this story the morning after was this…”He was never driving recklessly. He was simply trying to navigate the confusing intersection under massive construction with its plethora of detour signs, orange cones and flashing barricades directing him into an oncoming lane, all in the dark of night with no stream of cars in front to follow…”
To all current students of UIW: There are multiple educational options in the city and the region so please choose a school that stands with the students and not with protocol. Remember, the university exists to serve you, the students, not it’s trustees, not its donors but you, students.
Your statement is ignorant of what college students go through and how real changes come about.
Some of us could leave, and have to spend so much money to get back to where we already are in out academic careers, not to mention the loss of thousands of dollars in aid the we receive from the university. For me personally, it cheaper to attend UIW than many state schools including UTSA.
I am a firm believer that lasting changes come from within. We have access to professors, students, and administration as students. If we leave, we miss out on that. UIW, much like the communities that surround it can be very insular, so staying will help to have our voices heard.
While decreased enrollment can hurt them financially, they can cut cost by reducing scholarships, cutting classes, and firing faculty and staff. Unless large number of students left not much would changes, and not many would leave. Some side with the university, some side with gun rights, some a simply unaware or too busy, most are to financially or academically invested.
Finally, when you love something you don’t abandon it because other say so. You stick with it to make it better. That is what many of us will do. UIW student have not been silent on the issues, and with the university’s most recent response we will have to fight harder
Sorry, there are so many all grammatical errors.
I’m also sorry that I used the word ignorant. I should have chose a less hostile word.
Yeah, of course they do.
The more details I hear the more this case stinks to high heavens.
Definitely very fishy.
Wow. UIW police “routinely conduct off-campus patrols of Alamo Heights neighborhoods…” Really? As one who lives off Broadway not far from UIW, this makes me very nervous. Some half-trained campus cop could pull me over late one night for no reason? That’s outrageous in itself! Not to mention frightening. Lots of questions raised here.
I have a degree in PR, and this is bad PR. Apparently their attorneys, who are supposed to consult not run the show, are not interested in the image of the school but instead fighting for the lowest liability order in court at a great cost to the university’s integrity. I strongly urge the university officials to look at the effect that Ted Kennedy’s apology positively had on his career for decades after he left a woman to drown in his car in a river without notifying authorities. Should the university apologize to the family, terminate the cop and update it’s training policies and procedures, this would all be forgiven by the community. Instead, their image is going down the drain for monetary savings and personal pride. It’s quite obvious their decision is the wrong one.
C’mon kids, let’s do a quick thought experiment:
1. Think about the type of people you know who grew up to be cops.
2. Now imagine a slightly lower grade, rent-a-version of this same vocation.
3. Finally, ask yourself if the events of 5 December are especially surprising.
Catholics have got the “cover up” thing down to a science.
UIW seems to be gambling that they can win in court. My bet is that they can’t. It will probably cost them more then if they had quietly settled with the family. The best comment from those about is the one that says the university has seemed rudderless while its president has been on a sabbatical cruise. I would have thought that he would have become involved in something this devastating for the campus and the community.
It seems that the officer is an individual who looks for trouble. I don’t know too many officers who look for trouble and act cowardly when the situation demands equanimity and bravery.
http://www.kens5.com/news/Cpl-Carter–261864941.html
If it is true that “UIW police routinely conduct off-campus patrols of Alamo Heights neighborhoods,” I am alarmed and strongly demand that UIW change it’s policy. They are NOT welcome in our neighborhoods. We have a fine police department and can do without their rogue cops.
No kidding, as if Alamo Heights Police aren’t stringent enough, now folks gotta worry about “a rogue cop with a bad track record” patrolling their streets. This is sad and unjust….