by BJW Nashe
Some are calling it “the biggest trial of the year” in Travis County, Texas. Twenty-six year-old Brandon Daniel, a former software designer whose life evidently disintegrated due to a combination of factors, is currently being tried for the fatal shooting of Austin police officer Jaime Padron in April 2012.
The main ingredients of the case — the defendant’s background, the random nature of his violent crime, and his strange behavior after the shooting — together form a potent true crime cocktail, which has resulted in plenty of courtroom drama and extensive coverage in the Austin press.
Public reaction to Daniel’s murder trial is marked by shock and dismay, and flavored with a trace of schadenfreude. Software engineers and “computer nerds” tend to enjoy a certain level of prestige and success as the high priests of our information age. Daniel’s brief biography shows that he was poised to enter the ranks of the high tech wizards who easily earn six-figure salaries in today’s economy. Described as “a brilliant young man” from the Denver suburbs, Daniel graduated from Colorado State University with a degree in computer science, and then embarked on a promising career at Hewlett-Packard in Austin. We rarely see computer scientists become mired in drugs and violence, so we are taken aback when someone like Daniel takes the plunge. Yet some of us can’t help but sigh and remind ourselves that this only proves the geek squad is human, all too human after all. Daniel’s personal problems included bouts of depression, girlfriend trouble, and a series of arrests for minor crimes such as possession of controlled substances and driving while intoxicated. He was apparently under the influence of marijuana and Xanax when he shot and killed Officer Padron.
As is the case with most gun violence, Daniel’s alleged crime is terrifying because of its utter senselessness. Now, with the trial underway, the full horror is being spelled out in painstaking detail. The prosecution is in full-court press mode, arguing that the troubled, drug addled software engineer is guilty of capital murder, and deserves nothing less than the death penalty. Reporters for the Austin American-Statesman are providing detailed coverage of the daily proceedings.
So what happened? How did an exemplary Austin police officer lose his life? Why is a stoned web designer now faced with the strong likelihood of an early death by lethal injection?
In the late night/early morning hours of April 6, 2012, a man later identified as Brandon Daniel was seen shambling around inside a Walmart store in North Austin. Store employees testified that Daniel seemed to be impaired as he swayed through the aisles, occasionally dropping food items and wine bottles. Concerned by the “empty” expression on Daniel’s face, as well as his lurching movements, store employees decided to call the police, saying they thought Daniel could be a shoplifter.
Walmart stores are interesting places in the middle of the night, filled with fascinating characters. Not all of them are deranged. Yet there’s no denying that after midnight, Walmart attracts a special breed of shopper. That’s when the manic 3 a.m. bargain hunters come out, as well as the drunken bar-hoppers fresh from last call, the bipolar insomniacs, the random thieves and tweakers. Calling the cops because of suspicious late night behavior is not uncommon at Walmart. What happened at the North Austin store in April 2012, however, is way outside the norm.
Austin police officer Jaime Padron was the unlucky cop who responded to the call. A Walmart security camera captured most of what happened after Padron arrived on the scene. The eerily silent footage, which was played in the courtroom earlier this week, shows Daniel trying to escape when he sees the officer approaching. He starts running toward the front entrance of the store. Padron and two Walmart employees — Lincoln LeMere and Archie Jordy — take off in hot pursuit. Padron tackles Daniel just in front of the sliding glass doorway, and both men slide several feet across the floor. Nearby customers can be seen scattering for safety. Padron and Daniel struggle on the ground for a moment, then the officer suddenly stops moving. Jordy and LeMere then manage to restrain Daniel, keeping him pinned down on the floor, until more help arrives.
Jordy’s testimony in court filled in certain details left unclear by the video footage. Jordy explained that after Daniel was tackled, he continued to struggle with Padron. Then Daniel pulled a small handgun out of his pocket and fired two shots into Padron’s body at extremely close range. A third shot was fired up toward the ceiling as Jordy and LaMere fought to restrain him. In the video, Jordy can be seen grabbing Daniel’s gun and tossing it aside, sending it skidding across the floor. Jordy said he grabbed Padron’s walkie-talkie and said, “Officer down, need assistance.” Unfortunately there was no hope for Padron, who had been shot in the chest and neck, and was pronounced dead at the scene of the crime.
The video exhibit and the eyewitness testimony have been hard on the nerves of many trial-watchers. The descriptions of Daniel’s behavior and remarks in the aftermath of the crime have added a sense of outrage to the plain horror. Jordy testified that after the shooting, Daniel “was giggling, basically smiling.” LeMere told jurors that Daniel giggled after the shooting and said, “I killed a cop,” while Padron lay bleeding on the store floor. These descriptions drew gasps from the courtroom audience.
Officer Albert Arevalo testified that Daniel made a similar statement — “I killed a cop” — at Austin Police Department headquarters. Arevalo also said Daniel had a blank stare and spoke in a lethargic tone, often slurring his words.
The jury was shown dash-cam footage of Daniel in the police car during his ride to the police station downtown. (As we know, everything is recorded these days.) This footage shows Daniel — who is apparently annoyed that the cops in the front seat will not speak to him — making several provocative and incriminating statements:
“You guys pissed that I capped one of your other friends? That’s probably it. Well, if there’s any consolation I met him before…. I’m glad he’s dead… I will see all of you in hell… Can I get the lethal injection? Is that possible?… I’ll probably go away for the rest of my life… “At least I get free food and don’t have to work again.”
The wisecrack about free food and lots of leisure time left one of Padron’s supporters in the courtroom badly shaken. She began sobbing loudly and had to be helped out of the room. A few minutes later, she was followed by a half-dozen others who were disgusted with what they were hearing. The jury didn’t have the option of stepping outside.
The videotaped interrogation of Daniel at police headquarters was also played for the jury. Here Daniel’s statements are less inflammatory, but still quite drug addled and very perplexing. Daniel explains to the interrogating detective that he never intended to shoot anyone when he carried a .380 pistol into Walmart after two o’clock in the morning. Daniel says that he had spent the evening at home smoking marijuana, as he often did. He has been under stress following a painful breakup with his girlfriend of five years. A friend came by to sell him $24 worth of Xanax. Then Daniel decided to go for a ride on his motorcycle.
Why take a loaded gun along with him? Daniel tells police that when he lived in California, he’d been an informant in a drug case. This led him to grow concerned for his safety. (And pot-smokers can be highly paranoid.) He says he still sometimes carries the gun — “for protection.”
The interrogation continues with Daniel explaining that once he arrived at Walmart — high on Xanax and weed, with the loaded gun in his right front pocket — he started shoplifting, stuffing peanuts and other items into his backpack. Daniel says he eventually noticed Officer Padron and several Walmart employees “eyeballing” him, so he figured they were about to confront him. When Padron identified himself and tried to talk to Daniel, he sprinted toward the front door.
Daniel’s version of the ensuing deadly scuffle differs from the surveillance video and numerous eyewitness statements. Daniel said he fired at Padron while standing up, which clearly is not true. The video shows them wrestling on the ground when Padron is shot.
Throughout the interview, Daniel says his recollection of the incident is fuzzy because he’s on drugs. At one point he asks the interrogating detective, “Am I going to jail for the rest of my life?” When the detective asks Daniel what he thinks should happen to him, the young man hazily replies that he should “probably put to death,” adding “I killed a cop… Is he dead?” The detective tells Daniel that the police officer did in fact die from his wounds, then asks Daniel how he feels about everything that happened. Daniel says, “I feel very bad for the officer who was doing his job and has kids… And I saw his face.” Daniel also says he feels badly for himself. “I feel like my life’s over.”
Defense attorney Russell Hunt Jr. told jurors that Daniel had taken the anti-anxiety drug Xanax on the night of the shooting, explaining that his client was depressed, in an “emotional tailspin” following the breakup with his girlfriend. Testimony from store employees and police has corroborated Daniel’s claim that he was in an altered state of mind. Hunt told jurors that Daniel was not attempting to make excuses for his behavior at Walmart on that fateful night. He simply wants people to understand that Xanax can lead to changes in personality and perception. Marijuana and Xanax, however, are typically associated with behavior such as couch-surfing and TV viewing — not random acts of violence. It will be hard to convince a jury that these “mellow drugs” led Daniel to commit murder.
Daniel has pleaded not guilty to charges of capital murder and attempted murder. To avoid a trial, defense attorneys reportedly offered a guilty plea in exchange for a life sentence without parole, but prosecutors rejected the offer. The district attorney is treating this as a death penalty case. The defense team will argue that Daniel poses no future threat to others — including fellow prisoners — and thus should be allowed to live. The defense clearly is facing a difficult uphill battle. Killing a cop is one of the worst crimes to be charged with, in terms of hoping for a lenient verdict in court.
Officer Padron was 40 years old when he was senselessly gunned down at Walmart. He was the first Austin police officer to be killed in the line of duty since 1978. A veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, Padron worked for the Austin Police Department for three years. Before that, he had served with the Austin Airport Police Department and the San Angelo Police Department for 14 years. He is survived by his two young daughters and his parents.
There is no word on whether the Walmart employees who risked their lives coming to the aid of Officer Padron were rewarded by the company in any way or given a raise. Perhaps their pay was increased from $8.00 to $8.75/hour. The tragic shooting raises security concerns for mega-stores such as Walmart, which pride themselves on staying open for business all night long. Are their employees safe working these hours in this particular environment, where people can simply stroll in with concealed weapons and start shoplifting their way through the graveyard shift? Does Walmart need to take steps to provide a safer workplace? Do they need more security officers of their own, if they are going to insist on doing business 24 hours a day?
Regardless of the verdict in Daniel’s trial, we cannot overemphasize the fact that the root cause of this tragic incident — and all others just like it — is no great mystery. The problem here is that we have too many guns in our homes and in our public places. Padron’s senseless death is the kind of crime that occurs with glaring regularity in a society where there are nearly as many guns as there are people. With over 300 million guns in America, is it really any surprise that we have roughly 30,000 gun deaths per year? And somewhere around 100,000 total shootings?
No matter what other problems Brandon Daniel had — depression, stress, a breakup, drugs — it was ultimately his gun problem that sealed his fate, and the fate of his innocent victim. If Daniel had not carried a loaded gun with him into Walmart on that cool April night two years ago, he would have received no more than a shoplifting charge and a possible trip to rehab. Instead, now he’s face-to-face with the death penalty in Travis County’s “trial of the year.” If Daniel hadn’t taken a loaded gun into Walmart, Officer Padron would not be dead, and his kids would still have a father.
I hope that cases such as this one will persuade all law enforcement officers — even those who may be gun enthusiasts — to actively support and speak out in favor of nationwide gun safety legislation.