A Texas man died during a traffic stop when officers restrained him even as he cried that he couldn't breathe. The case went unreported until now.
Javier Ambler was driving home from a friendly poker game in the early hours of March 28, 2019, when a Williamson County sheriff’s deputy noticed that he failed to dim the headlights of his SUV to oncoming traffic.
Ambler’s death also renews scrutiny on a suburban agency that has been under fire for more than a year, largely because of its relationship with the reality TV show. Some 15 months after Ambler’s death, Moore’s civil rights division is still investigating the incident. After questioning from an American-Statesman reporter, she said her office plans to present the case to a grand jury.
“He’s dead. How?” Ambler’s mother, Maritza, sobbed in a recent interview. “I can’t have any closure because I need to know.”“I woke up, and I wasn't able to see,” Maritza Ambler said. “But he came to me and he wanted to tell me. He wanted to show me what happened to him." Ambler smashed his Honda Pilot into stationary objects four times before crashing a final time near East St. Johns and Bethune avenues, just east of Interstate 35 north of downtown Austin at 1:45 a.m.
Deputies yell at Ambler to lay on his stomach and put his hands behind his back. One presses a Taser into his upper back.As the deputies scream orders, Ambler, between gasps, tells them he’s trying to follow their commands. Another four times he tells the deputies he can’t breathe.The deputies, who are on top of Ambler, continue yelling at him to put his arms behind his back.
Protocols that Chody put in place Feb. 28, 2020, say a car chase is justified only when a deputy believes a person has committed a crime “for which there is an immediate need for apprehension.” The department’s pursuit policy from last year was not immediately available. ‘I just lost it’Ambler, the oldest of two children and son of a retired Army veteran and hospital scheduling clerk, grew up on military installations before the family settled outside Fort Hood, Texas, in 1991."Just be respectful,” Javier Ambler Sr. said he taught his son. “ ‘Yes, sir. No, sir.’ And just be professional. Be respectful."
After leaving college, his parents said, he worked for UPS and then was recruited to join the United States Postal Service as a rural route carrier. After the Postal Service began downsizing a couple of years ago, Ambler, who was living in Pflugerville, got a job working with two property management companies in Austin, making sure apartments were ready for new tenants.
The morning after his death, police arrived at Ambler’s parents’ home in Killeen. The officers were brief, saying only that their son had died in police custody. Troubling questionsBecause the chase ended in Austin, the Austin Police Department Special Investigations Unit is investigating with Moore’s Civil Rights Unit.
On May 18, the Texas attorney general’s office ordered Chody’s office to release some documents, and the department made public a three-page internal investigative report and the statement of a deputy who arrived at the scene at the conclusion of the chase. Moore said that because of the coronavirus pandemic, grand juries have been unable to meet for months and that state court administrators have said they may not do so again until August. Moore said she will seek permission this week to convene the grand jury before August.
He said in his more than three years in office, he has tried to move past what he said was a tradition of “chase until the wheels fall off” and encourage deputies to end chases. He said he has also bolstered oversight of pursuits. Yale University psychology professor John Dovidio said it is neither uncommon nor unreasonable for a person of color who encounters police to run from them, even if they have not committed a crime, because of America’s long history of violence between minorities and law enforcement officers.
“It is getting very difficult for my prosecutors to uphold their statutory and Constitutional obligations to disclose evidence when prosecuting sheriff's department cases," Dick said.
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