Protesters march in Grapevine for release of police video

Ruben García Villalpando’s widow wept Sunday at the end of a peaceful justice march for her husband, who was unarmed when he was fatally shot by a Grapevine police officer in late February.

“Right now he is in heaven watching all the people who came here today,” said the widow, Martha Romero, 29. “I think he is thankful and he knows justice will be served.”

Protesters chanted “No justice, no peace” and “Release the video” while they marched down Main Street from City Hall to the small Police Department on Dallas Road. A portion of Main Street was closed for the march.

Estimates range from 75 to more than 100 people participating.

Little children wove through the crowd waving American flags as people of all ages and ethnicities carried signs that said “All lives matter” and “Protect don’t shoot.”

García’s family and activists are calling for police to release to the public video from a dashboard camera that captured the shooting by a policeman on the Texas 121 service road the night of Feb. 20. Family members who have seen the video say García, a Mexican national, asked the officer if he was going to kill him moments before he was shot twice in the chest.

Katherine McGovern, 72, drove from Dallas to support the García family.

“I spoke up in the ’60s and I’ll speak up now,” the former civil-rights activist said. “There is no excuse that I’m aware of for this level of violence. You don’t go shooting people willy-nilly.”

Grapevine police said García fled from officer Robert Clark, led him on a brief chase and then ignored his commands to stop after he got out of the car.

Romero, who was left with four children, has wanted officials to release the dash cam footage since she first saw it shortly after her husband was slain.

Police originally said they were going to release the footage, but the Tarrant County district attorney’s office urged them not to.

“Why has it been four weeks and the video has not been released?” the family’s attorney, Domingo García, said Sunday. “Why has the officer not been arrested?”

Grapevine Sgt. Robert Eberling, police spokesman, said Sunday that the video is evidence and its release could have the potential to hamper the investigation and “contaminate” the grand jury.

“Unfortunately, it is not our decision, because the Tarrant County district attorney’s office said they are not going to allow us to release the video,” Eberling said.

The protest was organized by local chapters of the League of United Latin American Citizens, the NAACP and the Next Generation Action Network, a multicultural nonprofit that says it strives for social change for all people.

Luis Castillo, 61, of the Arlington branch of LULAC said he was a police officer for nine years in Laredo in the ’80s. His take is that Clark made a poor judgment call because of lack of training.

“There were less drastic means he could have taken,” Castillo said.

Though he supports release of the video, he predicted that little will change.

“I can say with a high degree of certainty that I don’t expect the grand jury will indict the officer,” Castillo said. “I think they should release the video, but will they? No.”

Carlos Quintanilla, president of the Hispanic advocacy group Accion America, urged locals to stop shopping at Grapevine Mills mall.

“We think Grapevine Mills funds the economy. We are asking out people in massive numbers to stop shopping there until they release the video,” Quintanilla said.

In the video, Ruben García walks toward the officer with his hands up by his head, said Quintanilla, who watched it with Romero.

He said the video shows that all the aggression came from Clark, who repeatedly used vulgar language.

“Once that video is released we are going to be marching with 1,000 people, no, with 10,000 people,” he said.

García’s brother-in-law, Fernando Romero, 27, said his sister has had to move into his North Richland Hills home now that her husband is dead.

He described his brother as a “a guy who liked attention.” But no one imagined that García would be getting it like this, Romero said.

This story was originally published March 22, 2015 at 4:27 PM with the headline "Protesters march in Grapevine for release of police video."