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Baltasar Rodriguez died on Sept. 1, 2021, after an interaction with San Antonio police officers. They were responding to reports of a man stumbling into the street on the East Side.
When officers arrived, they had to pull Rodriguez away from another individual with whom, police said, he was struggling.
Officers recognized that Rodriguez appeared to be having “some type of medical episode,” and when Rodriguez did not respond to attempts to communicate, they tried to bring him into the shade.
The report then explained that Rodriguez flailed his arms and tried to crawl toward the street, leading officers to place him on his stomach and attempt to handcuff him.
After an officer placed the first cuff on one of Rodriguez’s wrists, the man went limp. Rodriguez was later declared dead at a hospital.
His autopsy report said he died from an overdose. It noted quantifiable levels of fentanyl and morphine and non-quantifiable amounts of heroin and methamphetamine in his blood. The autopsy report also said the examining physician reviewed “digital media evidence” which showed officers kneeling on Rodriguez’s lower back and posterior while they restrained him.
Rodriguez’s friends and families don’t believe he died from an overdose. They said they believe officers killed him. That’s why they plan to sue the city by the end of August.
John Allison Vaughn is determined to secure justice for his friend, who he calls a brother. He said getting any information about the case has been a struggle.
“The way that they do it, the way that they brush you off, it’s so systemic that it feels second nature,” he said. “They’re used to doing business just like this. And I’ll tell you, it’s very insulting and very disrespectful.”
The sticking point for Vaughn with SAPD has been body and dash cam footage from the incident. SAPD and the city have refused to turn it over, and officials received an opinion from the Texas Attorney General’s Office in November 2022 which supported their decision to withhold the footage. The city’s decision stems from the belief that there may be a potential lawsuit over the case.
“The answer is always 'no,' ” Vaughn said. “Always 'no, no, no,' and we were actually told, ‘You’re never going to see this footage.’”
Vaughn pointed to what he considers to be one major problem in the police report. It doesn’t say anything about Rodriguez’s brother Joshua Rodriguez, who Vaughn said was also there that day.
“[Joshua and Baltasar] come out of the convenience store,” he said. “They’re pulled out, so they pull Joshua out, they put him in the back of the car. They pull [Baltasar] to the side of the building, they beat the hell out of him, and then release Joshua Rodriguez.”
Joshua was killed in a shooting last year and cannot corroborate the claims himself.
SAPD did not respond to TPR’s questions about Joshua’s alleged presence at the scene, which was not mentioned in the police report viewed by TPR.
The autopsy report noted that officers knelt on Rodriguez’s back during the incident, and that led Vaughn to compare it to the murder of George Floyd, which occurred just over a year before Rodriguez’s death.
“These are positions that kill. It’s the same thing that killed George Floyd,” he said. “The only difference between George Floyd’s case and this case is there were people watching.”
The autopsy report said that since there was no violent struggle while officers restrained Rodriguez with their knees that would have “caused or contributed to the death,” Rodriguez’s death “is best certified as an accident.” The report referred to the toxicology report’s findings of drugs in Rodriguez’s system as the cause of the accident.
An SAPD spokesperson said an SAPD Internal Affairs review of the incident found no wrongdoing. It also said the death was not classified as an “in-custody death,” but did not explain why.
So-called officer-involved shootings, custodial deaths, and allegations of excessive use of force are all reviewed by the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office’s Civil Rights Division. But because this case is not classified as a custodial death, Vaughn said the division told him it had no authority to review the case.
“I’m not saying anything bad about [the Civil Rights Division],” he said. “They can’t do anything until a file is forwarded to them. SAPD refuses to send that file to them, so there’s nothing that they can do.”
Vaughn said the family will no longer be able to sue the city for wrongful death after Sept. 1, 2023, because the civil statute of limitations is two years. That’s why he has pushed hard in the past several months to find an attorney willing to bring the suit before then.
Ananda Tomas, the executive director of police reform group ACT4SA, has helped Vaughn and Rodriguez’s family find attorneys.
“I think at this point, it’s very clear this is not going to the DA, the Civil Rights Division, so the only option a family has left at this point to get the answers or to be able to view this [footage] is to get a lawyer, file a civil suit,” Tomas said. “Unfortunately, what’s really sad is we know this takes a long time.”
Vaughn said he believes SAPD killed his friend, but acknowledged that he’s willing to believe things happened like officers and the medical examiner said. But he needs the footage if he’s ever going to believe that.
If officers did the right thing, Vaughn said, “then shame on you for not being more transparent and allowing mom and family to think of the possibility that their son, my brother, was murdered by SAPD. Do you know how hard that is to take to bed every night?”
