{"id":191208,"date":"2026-03-05T04:31:36","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T04:31:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/191208\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T04:31:36","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T04:31:36","slug":"texas-da-jose-garza-not-charging-austin-police-officers-killing-bar-terrorist-ndiaga-diagne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/191208\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas DA Jose Garza not charging Austin police officers killing bar terrorist Ndiaga Diagne"},"content":{"rendered":"

A\u00a0progressive Texas district\u00a0attorney said he will not seek charges against the Austin police officers who fatally shot a gunman who killed three people<\/a> and injured 13 others in a suspected terror attack amid speculation they could potentially face a grand jury.<\/a><\/p>\n

Travis County District Attorney Jos\u00e9 Garza released a statement after Gov. Greg Abbott said he would eventually have the final say on whether the officers should be charged or convicted in court.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThese officers are heroes, and it should go without saying that my office is not seeking any charges and would not seek charges,\u201d Garza said. \u201cThe accounts to the contrary are false, intentionally false, and are being peddled for obvious political purposes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Garza\u2019s office was the subject of criticism after it became known that the officers could potentially face a grand jury as part of a 2021 policy that all officer-involved shooting cases and serious use-of-force incidents be presented to a grand jury for review.<\/p>\n

Doug O\u2019Connell, whose law firm O\u2019Connell West has been tapped to represent the officers at the behest of the Austin Police Association, said the review is part of a policy instituted by Garza.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Travis County District Attorney Jos\u00e9 Garza released a statement after Gov. Greg Abbott said he would eventually have the final say on whether the officers should be charged or convicted in court.\u00a0 AP<\/p>\n

The Austin police officers shot and killed Ndiaga Diagne, a 53-year-old naturalized US citizen born in Senegal. X\/@BillMelugin_<\/p>\n

Garza, O\u2019Connell said, demanded the policy at the direction of the Wren Collective, a progressive criminal justice reform nonprofit that backs liberal DAs and is mainly composed of former public defenders seeking to overhaul the American justice system.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s my belief that the Wren Collective has directed the district attorney to review officer-involved cases this way,\u201d O\u2019Connell told Fox News Digital. \u201cIt seems they\u2019re very anti-law enforcement officers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Austin police officers shot and killed Ndiaga Diagne,<\/a> a 53-year-old naturalized US citizen born in Senegal, early Sunday after he\u00a0opened fire\u00a0at a bar, Buford\u2019s Backyard Beer Garden,<\/a> killing Savitha Shan, 21, Jorge Pederson, 30, and 19-year-old Ryder Harrington.<\/a><\/p>\n

Fox News Digital has reached out to Garza\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

An Iranian flag shirt Diagne wore underneath his \u201cProperty of Allah\u201d sweatshirt. X\/camiloreports<\/p>\n

In a statement to Fox News Digital, Wren Collective founder Jessica Brand thanked the responding officers for their actions, which she credited for saving more lives.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThree people died in a mass shooting last week, more people were harmed, families are grieving\u00a0and the entire city is in mourning,\u201d she said. \u201cThe officers did heroic work and stopped what could have been an even bigger tragedy.\u00a0As an Austin resident, I thank them, and also those people providing support for the many victims and their loved ones now.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Connell said Garza ran on a campaign of targeting police officers in an anti-police climate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The DA instituted the review in 2021 amid calls for greater law enforcement accountability after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, which also sparked nationwide calls to defund police agencies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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In addition to worrying about violence directed at them, officers now have to worry about potential legal action, O\u2019Connell said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery time an officer is dispatched to a violent criminal call, they\u2019ve got to be thinking: \u2018I could be killed, or, depending on how this goes, I could be indicted,’\u201d O\u2019Connell said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a post on X,\u00a0Abbott\u00a0praised the officers while noting that Garza\u2019s office isn\u2019t the end-all should the officers involved be charged or convicted in court.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThese police officers are heroes who saved lives. Whatever the DA does, I will have the final say in the fate of these police officers,\u201d he wrote on X.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Austin police officers work at the scene on West Sixth Street after a shooting outside Buford\u2019s bar in downtown Austin, on March 1, 2026. AP<\/p>\n

Fox News Digital has reached out to Abbott\u2019s office for clarity on his remarks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Texas state Rep. Mitch Little, a Republican who formerly served as the impeachment attorney for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, told Fox News Digital there was no legal justification to have a grand jury for every single officer-involved shooting.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only explanation for that is a leftist ideological bent on the part of the district attorney\u2019s office,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Much of the criticism of the mandatory review stems from its lack of transparency, O\u2019Connell said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing about it is fair or balanced. The district attorney holds all the power when it comes to grand juries,\u201d he said, noting that defense lawyers aren\u2019t allowed to be present or present evidence.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that\u00a0grand juries\u00a0have been manipulated because we\u2019ve had to defend officers who have been indicted,\u201d he added.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Michael Bullock, the president of the Austin Police Association, the union that represents rank-and-file officers, said he believed there was already \u201csufficient information\u201d that publicly shows a grand jury isn\u2019t necessary.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no need to subject these officers to that, especially since it\u2019s taking the DA over a year in almost every case to present these to the grand jury,\u201d he wrote Tuesday on X. \u201cThat\u2019s way too long and added stress for officers who have already been through a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A\u00a0progressive Texas district\u00a0attorney said he will not seek charges against the Austin police officers who fatally shot a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191209,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,7099,672,25805,7096,27,734],"class_list":["post-191208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-grand-jury","tag-police","tag-police-shootings","tag-terrorism","tag-texas","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191208\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}