Texas Rangers investigate police shooting of city man
Published Tuesday November 24th, 2009
Scuffle ends in death | Local man shot, killed by police in Texas
A police shooting in Texas that claimed the life of a Fredericton man is being investigated by the Texas Rangers.
Thomas Andrew Reid, 37, who was in a wheelchair, was killed Friday by a Pecos County deputy.
The shooting occurred during a scuffle at a hotel parking lot in Fort Stockton, Texas, a city about 400 kilometres east of El Paso.
"It is not uncommon for us to do that (investigate) for smaller agencies that do not have their own internal affairs department," Tela Mange, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, said Monday.
Reid's death followed an unusual series of events that started 24 hours earlier when an accident between a pair of trucks tied up traffic on a highway outside of Fort Stockton.
Pecos County Sheriff Cliff Harris said the shooting appears to have been at least partially sparked by a case of road rage.
Harris said the accident led to a section of the highway being blocked.
"Mr. Reid came through and he was very irate with the officers and saying things he shouldn't," Harris said.
"They finally got him through it and he started darting in and out of traffic. He almost ran our fire chief down who was out there working the wreck."
Harris said an officer down the highway was alerted with instructions to stop Reid's vehicle, but he refused to pull over.
Speeds of between 135 km/h and 150 km/h were reached for close to 50 kilometres, said the sheriff.
"We managed to spike his tires, get him stopped and pulled over," Harris said.
"He was arrested (and) brought into Fort Stockton. Our mental health and retardation people checked him out."
Reid was charged with evading arrest and spent Thursday night in jail, but arrangements were made the next day for family to come and pick him up.
Once he was out of custody, Reid was taken to a local hotel, Harris said.
But police were called to that location at around 4 p.m. Friday after receiving a report that Reid was in the facility's parking lot "screaming and hollering."
Two officers responded but were unable to quiet him down.
A scuffle occurred when officers attempted to handcuff him.
"He ended up getting one of the officer's guns and fired one round off," Harris said.
"It was lucky it didn't hit anybody. The scuffle went on ... (and) he had the gun stuck in one of the officer's belly, fixing to pull the trigger when the officer shot him."
Harris said he believes Reid didn't like red lights or uniformed officers.
The Texas Rangers were called in to investigate the shooting because they're an outside police agency.
"My people did what they had to do," Harris said.
"The officer that shot him was trying to keep the other officer from being killed."
Reid's body was sent to Fort Worth Tarrant County for an autopsy and will be returned to Canada.
He worked in Texas as an addiction specialist.
When contacted Monday, Reid's family said they were too upset to comment.
Reid's Facebook page, meanwhile, was overflowing with tributes Monday.
Friend Mark Lacey said he couldn't believe it.
"I crossed paths with Andrew at many different times in life and always considered him a friend," he wrote.
"He is the type of person that lives in my memory and brings a smile to my face at the most unexpected times. God Bless you Reider. And my thoughts are with your family."
In 1999, while surfing in San Diego, Reid suffered a spinal stroke that left him paralysed from the waist down.
In 2001, he became the Canadian national hand-cycling champion and in 2002 he recorded the first of two CDs with Champ Covington.
Reid also wrote a real-time account of his drug problem called Keel Over & Die in 2005.
Two years later, he graduated with a masters in addiction counselling from Hazelden Graduate School in Minnesota.
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Clearly, we do not know the whole story and it seams like there was more going on with him than what is in the story.
It is a Shame.
It's pretty common thing to happen when someone's got it in their mind to take the officers gun. So common that holsters and release mechanisms have altered over the past 10 years 6 times, to make things safer for the officer.
Remember the police officer isn't going to start with a 'Rodney King' attitude, they're going to try and calm the situation, sometimes unruly people get the jump on you, it could be many cases of all kinds of things to a mental issue, drugs, suicide by cop.
I imagine the officer regrets having to kill someone to stop them from killing an officer of the peace - I bet you wouldn't be so hot to trot if Andrew had managed to wound, or even kill the police officer that Andrew was pointing the gun at.
It's a tragedy that such a champion fell so far, he's had a problem with drugs, why didn't he get the continued support he clearly needed?
But if you play with fire you will be burnt.
My condolences to Mr Reids family and friends.