Former San Antonio police officer James Brenand surrendered to authorities Tuesday night after it was announced he faced two counts of aggravated assault by a public servant in the Oct. 2 shooting of 17-year-old Eric Canta, who is now in custody on life support devices. .
In accordance with CNNPolice Chief William McManus announced that each person in the car has been charged with aggravated assault. As previously reported, on the night of the incident Kantu was in the driver’s seat, and there was also a passenger, but that person was not injured.
McManus said the shooting was “unjustified both administratively and criminally.” He continued to say
“We’ve been working on it for days to get to the point where we could submit the warrant for the judge to sign, and that’s where we are right now.”
McManus earlier said the aggravated assault charge could escalate to murder if Cantu does not survive.
Brennand, who had been with the police force for seven months, was fired after dashcam footage showed him approaching the car and opening the door as he ordered Cant out of the car. When Cantu put the car in reverse, Brenand fired five times at the car and shot five more times as the car drove away.
McManus said he arrived at the scene and saw the location of the bullet holes. he said
“When I saw that, the location of the bullet holes, I immediately had a problem. By looking at the cars, you can tell which way the car is going when the shots are fired, and this car, it was very telling to me that this car was moving away from the officer and moving parallel to the officer, so at that point I was it’s quite clear that we’re going to have a problem.”
As previously mentioned, Brennand believed that the car Cantu was driving was stolen and called for backup. However, he got to the car before his double arrived. It was mentioned that Brennand noticed a vehicle evading him the day before when he tried to stop the car because the registered license plate did not match the actual vehicle.
At the time of the incident, he was responding to an unrelated emergency call that did not involve the vehicle Cantu was driving that night.
We will continue to update you as this story unfolds.
TSR STAFF: Jade Ashley @JadeAshley94