Aransas Pass Police Caught on Video Beating Matias Vera: Texas Police Department Faces Another Allegation of Evildoing.

Call it “police brutality” or “excessive force,” but anytime someone in law enforcement abuses their power with physical violence, it’s not something that should be tolerated by anyone, anywhere – much less the local law enforcement officials, city councils, or state and federal authorities.

So it’s rather shocking that we’re reading yet ANOTHER news story about members of the Aransas Pass Police Department beating up citizens. Consider this:

• Less than a year ago, we wrote about a man riding home on a bicycle that got stopped and beaten by a police officer with the Aransas Pass Police Department   ( “Texas Rangers Investigating Another Case of Police Brutality and Excessive Force.“)
• There was also the story about the Aransas Pass Police Department planting evidence on a guy last fall.  See, “Texas Police Accused of Planting Drugs on Innocent Man: Aransas Pass Police Department Corruption Charges Escalate.“

For details on what constitutes “excessive force” read our short explanatory article here.  This type of thing is notorious for happening all over the State of Texas.  Here’s another example of excessive force caught on video, this one a beating of a U.S. Veteran by cops over in East Texas.

The Beating of Matias Vera in Aransas Pass, Texas

One of the benefits of modern technology is the ability of  gizmos like dashcams and cellphones to capture these horrific events where cops abuse their power – they can’t intimidate victims or just flat out lie that nothing happened when there’s camera evidence to document the crime.  And yes, excessive force is a crime.

Which is one good thing for Matias Vera.  The beating that Matias Vera III received from law enforcement was caught by a camera’s lens.  More than one, hopefully.

According to news reports, a cell phone video shows Mr. Vera being punched by fists and kicked by booted feet by the Aransas Pass cops after they had already subdued him and had Mr. Vera lying down on the ground.  So a cell phone will tell the tale, right?  Watch the cell phone video here and you can see that it was taken from a distance by a witness to the event … good for them to have the courage to do this.

What about the dashcams? Reports are that there should be four (4) police car dashcams from the scene to provide additional evidence of what happened to Mr. Vera.  As of this morning, there were no media releases of any video footage.

Additionally, only one officer from the scene is being investigated according to the local police department – and he’s just on administrative leave.  With pay.  Which happened AFTER the cell phone was disclosed to the media.

Wow.

For more details, check out the exclusive interview with Matias Vera by Corpus Christi TV Station KRIS-TV. KRIS-TV is reporting that the Texas Rangers are back in Aransas Pass to investigate this incident.

Maybe It’s In the Water?

Of course, these aren’t the only recent stories of unacceptable violence happening down in Aransas County. Remember the Texas Judge who was caught on video beating his daughter – the daughter had hidden the camera, videotaped the episode as it happened in their home, and then uploaded it to YouTube?

That’s right: that was Aransas County Court at Law Judge William Adams. (Details in our post here.)

Perhaps it’s a word to the wise: steer clear of Aransas Pass and Port Aransas and Rockport (all found in Aransas County) during your summer trip down to the coast this year. Yikes.