Shocking: Houston Police Trust Drunk Driver Over Black Ex-Cop Who Tried To Stop Him
The real shocker though is that the *Fifth Circuit* struck down their 'qualified immunity.'
The normally very conservative Fifth Circuit Court dealt a blow to qualified immunity this week, denying its application to two Houston police officers who wrongfully arrested a man for detaining a drunk driver who crashed into a highway median and then tried to run into traffic.
“Qualified immunity” was established by the Supreme Court in 1967’s Pierson v. Ray. It protects police officers and other officials from being sued for screwing up horribly and ruining (or ending) people’s lives — but it’s come under increased scrutiny in recent years, with appellate courts increasingly finding in favor of plaintiffs. And now the Fifth Circuit? Well, strike us down!
In 2019, Austin Hughes, a 37-year-old security guard, Uber driver, and former police officer, called 911 when, while driving two Uber passengers, he saw a (very drunk) driver driving erratically and careening across lanes on the highway. After the driver crashed, Hughes stopped and handcuffed the man in order to keep him there until the police could arrive, in order to prevent him from driving into traffic again and potentially killing someone — which would have been bad!
“I’m a former police officer, I’m from Michigan,” Hughes told the 911 operator at nearly 3 a.m. that morning, explaining, “This guy is running between like, three or four lanes.”
However, when Officers Michael Garcia and Joshua Few came on the scene, they let the drunk driver — who failed all six of the sobriety test components — go after he told them an absolutely batshit story. In his version of events, Austin Hughes was named “Jesse,” they knew each other, and he, actually, was the one who was doing all of the drunk driving.
Via the Fifth Circuit:
On 3-23-2019 I was at a flea market with Jesse and his friends (Uber drivers [sic] alias). Jesse said that we could go back to his place and that he lived on 59 south near downtown. I told Jesse that I lived on I10 and he said that he would take me home later. I said okay because I had been drinking on night [sic] and had more than 7 beers. I was too drunk to drive but I had a friend at the bar that could of [sic ] taken me home. Jesse said let’s go to his house and he offered to drive so we went. Mid way [sic ] during the trip I was not familiar with where I was at. I started to ask Jesse where he was taking me. I finally asked Jesse to just take me home and that is when he got mad.
Jesse asked if I had something going on with his wife. I told Jesse no. Jesse then asked me what I got going on with his wife. I was confused and asked what he meant. Jesse said he knows there is something going on.
Jesse stopped my truck on the freeway and got out of it. He came to my passenger side door and was trying to get me out of the car. I was confused at this point and only wanted to know what was going on. Jesse kept telling me I am fucked and how I was going to be deported. I was on the freeway so I could not just get away from Jesse. Finally Jesse told me to turn around and put my hands behind my back. When I did not do it fast enough Jesse kneed my legs to force me to comply. I asked Jesse why he was doing this and who gave him the right to do this. Jesse told me he was a police officer. Jesse then put me in handcuffs. My leg was hurting making it hard for me to stand and I had scratches on my wrists from him trying to handcuff me
Now, Austin Hughes’s name was obviously not “Jesse,” and there were no nighttime flea markets in Houston that day, but the cops chose to believe the drunk’s story anyway and let some family members come and pick him up.
Garcia and Few then repeated the obviously ridiculous story, omitting the part about the driver failing all of the sobriety tests, for a probable cause affidavit they submitted to a judge. The next day at 3 a.m., they showed up at Hughes’s apartment, and arrested him on felony charges of “impersonating a police officer.”
At about 3:00 a.m. on March 25, Officers Few and Garcia went to Hughes’s home to arrest him. The record does not reveal, and judicial imagination cannot fathom, why officers needed or wanted to execute this arrest warrant at 3:00 a.m. But Hughes, who was asleep with his wife at the time, answered the officers through the door. Few and Garcia asked to see Hughes’s Uber app, insisting they needed to see his actual cell phone, rather than the screenshots he had already sent. Hughes “cracked open the door to give [his cell phone] to the officers. However, instead of taking the phone, [the] officers grabbed Mr. Hughes’s outstretched arm and pulled him out of his apartment into the hallway and handcuffed him.” ROA.280. The record does not reveal, and again judicial imagination cannot fathom, why officers needed to trick an undressed Hughes into extending his arm through the cracked door so he could be forcibly arrested in his pajamas.
As a result, he spent 24 hours in jail, had to spend thousands of dollars on a criminal offense attorney, and had to wait for three months until prosecutors dismissed the charges against him. Because of the charges, however, Hughes could not find work for several months.
So, just to recap — this guy tried to do the right thing by calling 911 and detaining this man by doing an entirely legal-in-Texas “citizen’s arrest” so that he didn’t hurt anyone else and had his whole damn life ruined as a “thank you.”
Hughes was just going to let it go, but was persuaded by a civil lawyer to go after the police department and ended up winning his case in district court. The department tried to get the case dismissed by the Fifth Circuit, but — and we again want you to know we are nearly stunned by this — that did not happen.
It is unclear which part of this case is more amazing: (1) That officers refused to charge a severely intoxicated driver and instead brought felony charges against the Good Samaritan who intervened to protect Houstonians; or (2) that the City of Houston continues to defend its officers’ conduct. Either way, the officers’ qualified immunity is denied, and the district court’s decision is AFFIRMED.
Clearly, they just went too far.
Austin Hughes did the right thing across the board here, first by reporting the driver, then by detaining him, and then, ultimately, by bringing those cops to court. It is objectively insane that police officers can just absolutely screw with someone’s life like this and never be held to account for it.
At least this time, things ended a little differently. Perhaps the next time Houston cops decide “Hey, maybe we should lie about some shit in order to arrest this person who tried to do a good thing!” they will at least consider that it could possibly end poorly for them.
PREVIOUSLY:
Any settlement Hughes wins against the city of Houston should be paid out of the police pension fund. You do that a couple of times and the cops will straighten up real quick.
Hughes obviously wanted Jesse's girl.