#127- "When Justice Reverses: The Christopher Taylor Case”

One of Austin’s most watched police cases just took a dramatic turn. After years of indictments, delays, and a deadly-conduct conviction pushed by Travis County DA José Garza, Officer Christopher Taylor has now been fully acquitted on appeal.

Attorney Doug O’Connell breaks down how a 2019 shooting—seen inside APD as clearly justified—became a political flashpoint, how docket equalization sent the case to West Texas, and how rare a full reverse and render truly is.

We dig into the bigger picture: a DA elected to prosecute officers, a defund-era APD crippled by staffing losses, and a public demanding accountability without understanding split-second force decisions. Doug draws a chilling comparison to Uvalde:
If you act, you’re charged. If you hesitate, you’re charged. What does that do to policing?

He also opens up about the personal toll and why confidential, stigma-free mental-health support is essential for officers and their attorneys.

A must-hear for anyone concerned about policing, justice, or officer wellness.

Chapters

• 0:55 Holidays And Setting The Stage
• 2:52 Introducing Attorney Doug O’Connell
• 4:07 Career Background And Firm Focus
• 7:02 APD Relationship And High-Profile Cases
• 8:58 Christopher Taylor Cases Timeline
• 10:53 Ramos Case, Politics, And Indictments
• 12:33 The 2019 Shooting Case And Trial
• 13:43 A Rare Appellate Acquittal Explained
• 16:25 Impact On Taylor, Family, And APD
• 18:45 Recruiting, Defund Effects, And Morale
• 20:40 Uvalde Comparison And Venue Changes
• 23:09 Upcoming Riot Case And Strategy
• 26:03 Prosecutorial Policy And Outside Influence
• 29:08 Warrior Vs Guardian And Split-Second Choices
• 32:32 Stress, Loss Of Trial Partner, And Coping
• 36:00 Counseling Stigma And Real Support

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:55

How was your holidays?

SPEAKER_03: 0:57

What do you know how to do this to come back to work and get some rest?

SPEAKER_02: 1:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I understand. My uh we had some family come in. Thankfully, uh wasn't a whole lot, but you know, it was a good time. The kids, I'm glad that they're back in school. Today's the official day of back to school, and so now some normalcy kind of can take place around the old Owen households. Yeah. Probably much like the Lawrence household.

SPEAKER_03: 1:16

I don't think I don't think the word normalcy in the Lawrence household everything. No, well, I'm supported. Sure, sure.

SPEAKER_02: 1:22

Well, uh, for those out there that have not watched our previous episode, there's an attorney here in Austin that has done some pretty amazing work. And and since I moved, uh, we have, I don't want to say formed a positive relationship. We formed a relationship with a certain district attorney uh in Travis County, being Jose Garza. And then you you you viewers and watchers out there are well aware of the complexities and challenges that our friends over at Austin Police and Travis County Sheriff's Office and those that work inside Austin that have to deal with. And uh it's it's really strengthened our relationship with an attorney called Doug O'Connell. And so uh, you know, he's gonna come back on the podcast and talk about a pretty significant case that uh you represented with an APD member. And uh thankfully he had junior quarter and and uh we're able to get some success out of that. So welcome back, first of all. Good to be back. How was your holiday season?

SPEAKER_01: 2:12

It was very nice. Quiet. Well, towards the end it got real busy.

SPEAKER_02: 2:17

Well, yeah, that's right. That's right. I've been seeing you on the news quite you know here lately. It's like every time we turn on and you're you're front and center, as you should be. You know, certainly proud of what you all the work you did for that for that case, and we're gonna dive off into that today. So you've been on the podcast before.

SPEAKER_01: 2:32

I have uh my longtime trial partner, Ken Arvin and I were here. Uh Ken and I uh tried uh a great number of law enforcement cases together, and unfortunately we lost Ken back in August.

SPEAKER_03: 2:48

Yeah, I'm very sorry to hear that. Um was that the Ambler case you were working on at the time when that podcast took place? Or is that also about Taylor?

SPEAKER_02: 2:59

I can't remember. It was we're leading up into the Taylor case.

SPEAKER_03: 3:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 3:03

Uh, but I want to say it was the second Taylor case.

SPEAKER_01: 3:06

It was very yes, it was the uh the protests uh that Daniel Perry case uh we had just gotten the pardoning frame Governor Peccan, Governor Abbott.

SPEAKER_02: 3:16

Yep.

SPEAKER_01: 3:17

And I think that's where we can't.

SPEAKER_02: 3:19

Okay. And the other Wilco case, I think you brought in as co-counsel.

SPEAKER_03: 3:23

Um and by the way, I don't I don't mean to we want to come back and talk about Ken, yes, later on. But first of all, I want to make sure the audience knows who Doug is. HB's been here before. Uh is there any of his background that we need to share?

SPEAKER_02: 3:37

What I would just suggest if you haven't watched the first podcast, we could certainly you know rush on his his his uh education experience just briefly, and then we can kind of dive off because the Christopher Taylor case is pretty complex and pretty awesome uh when you kind of dive off into it. Right. And we can spend days talking about it.

SPEAKER_03: 3:54

Yeah. Uh yeah. But but we've got we've got a hard stop to worry about.

SPEAKER_02: 3:59

Doug, we'll just go ahead and dive off in to give the give the viewer and uh and listen for kind of a dive or a really, I guess, really quick overview of background.

SPEAKER_01: 4:07

So I I've been an attorney for 31 years at this point. I started out as a misdemeanor prosecutor in the Travis County attorney's office, and then I went to the DA's office, Travis County DA's office back when prosecutors weren't there. Back when uh we thought of ourselves as partners with law enforcement, and we were in the business of enforcing the laws and holding criminals accountable. And that was a great experience. And then I went to the U.S. attorney's office where I was a federal prosecutor for a number of years, uh, and then went ultimately into private practice. Yeah. And uh I have a small law firm here in headquartered in Austin, O'Connell West. We have offices down in San Antonio, we have an office in Tamar working on an office in Kaleen. We represent law enforcement officers, but also regular citizens.

SPEAKER_02: 5:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 5:06

And we also represent a lot of military people because most of the attorneys I work with are military veterans. A couple guys are still in the Army Reserve.

SPEAKER_02: 5:17

Including yourself, Army Army, or excuse me, I'm military vet.

SPEAKER_01: 5:20

I am. I retired in 2017 from the Texas National Guard. I ended up a colonel when it was all said and done. And so a lot of the folks that find their way to us are military veterans or their family members.

SPEAKER_02: 5:35

Yeah. And it's no surprise that you living in Austin, of working here in Austin and your reputation custom speaks for itself. You have a formed relationship, very close-knit relationship with the Austin Police Department. And I and correct me if I'm wrong if I'm misspeaking. I think that APD officers really, when they get into a fine and they feel like they're being targeted or prosecuted. I mean, with the whole riot situation of the prop your protest, about 21 of them got indicted. Um, they leaned on you for a lot of the representation, and some of the heavier cases that you've taken on have been more of the high profile cases. Is that that's an accurate statement? Almost all of the cases. Yeah, you're not talking. I mean, and not not that you don't like dealing with, and I don't want to call an IA a penny. That you don't typically deal um with an IA case or an officer appealing at some come some kind of small suspension. Typically, cases you're involved in are pretty much the high profile uh charges that are brought you know publicly brought against the officers.

SPEAKER_01: 6:29

That that's accurate. You know, the APA has some very, very high-quality in-house attorneys and they handle the internal affairs portion. Right. Um, sometimes if we feel like I need to go see how that officer does answering questions to protect, predict or give insight into how they might do at trial, yeah, then I will take over and handle the high-day portion. But generally enough.

SPEAKER_02: 6:56

Well, so for those that don't know don't live in the Austin Area course, just made national news when this occurred. You were assigned to you took over a case in 20 was it 2019, the Taylor case?

SPEAKER_03: 7:08

Didn't okay, let's make sure we go to the background here. Yeah. Chris Taylor was indicted and tried on a different case altogether. I'm trying to make sure I get my facts straight, and was acquitted on that case. And then the DA went back and reopened this 2019 case that he'd already been cleared on and took it to a grand jury, indicted him on this one.

SPEAKER_01: 7:31

So that's sort of accurate. Okay. In 2019, Chris Taylor and another officer named Carl Kreesha got involved in officer involved shooting and at a high-rise condominium downtown Austin. And we'll come back to that. Uh everybody in the department and the district attorney's office, I believe, concluded that that was a very righteous uh use of force, completely justifying. Then in 2020, he was involved in another office run off shooting that where the deceived in that case is a guy named Michael Ramos. And the district attorney, by then, Jose Garza had come into office, and Chris got indicted for the Ramos office law shooting.

SPEAKER_02: 8:17

Which I think it's important for those that aren't aware or aren't around the Austin area. That made somewhat Texas statewide national news, but it was the premier news news story. And that's, I think, if you correct me if I'm wrong, Garza ran uh on the campaign that he was going to bring you know the law enforcement justice. And the Ramos was significantly in part of his campaign that it was gonna prosecut the cops. He ran on the flat form of prosecuting cops.

SPEAKER_01: 8:43

And specifically Chris Taylor.

SPEAKER_03: 8:45

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01: 8:45

On the Ramos case. On the Ramos case and then the Wilco deputies on the Ambler case.

SPEAKER_03: 8:49

On the Ambler Ambler case, right. So and and I don't I don't want to sell that point short. Jose Garza targeted Chris Taylor from the beginning. Before he even got elected.

SPEAKER_01: 9:02

Before he ever took office.

SPEAKER_03: 9:03

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 9:04

He had concluded, before he'd ever seen a case file, he had concluded that somehow Christopher Taylor.

SPEAKER_03: 9:09

And of course, the Ramos case would have been the one to go with first because it had all the publicity. It was it was commonly linked to the George Ford case.

SPEAKER_01: 9:17

Right.

SPEAKER_03: 9:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 9:19

And so uh Ken Irvin and I, my longtime trial partner, represented Chris Taylor in the Ramos case. And uh I think it's all it all runs together at this point. I'm sorry, but I want to say we set out to try that case three times. The first time uh we were not able to see the jury, the second time we were not able to see the jury, and the third time it resulted in a hung jury mistrial because the jury hum. In the meantime, while all that was going on, the district attorney indicted Chris Taylor and Carl Kretscha on the 2019 older Osir Wolf shooting. And then ultimately we tried that case.

SPEAKER_03: 10:12

He was. And then last week, and the reason we called you to be here today, is the Court of Appeals overturned that conviction and went even further and declared and issued an acquittal on the case, which is pretty rare, right?

SPEAKER_01: 10:28

I it it's so rare that I can't even articulate it, it simply never happens. Getting a criminal case reversed on appeal is really less. Getting uh the Court of Criminal Court of Appeals to issue an acquittal is is unheard of.

SPEAKER_02: 10:45

So talk about that real quick, because I mean admittedly, you know, if I was 24 years old on control, some of these cops that we're working right now, or even our law enforcement supporters, may not understand the magnitude and significance behind that. So give give kind of a definition of really how significant that is for that court of criminal appeals to do such a thing.

SPEAKER_01: 11:04

So first, uh not Court of Criminal Appeals, Court of Appeals. The Court of Court, sorry. Specifically the Seventh Court of Appeals out in West Texas. Um and that's an interesting and important thing to note because normally a case out of Mauston would go to the third court of appeals. It was sent out to the Seventh Court of Appeals because of what they call docket levely, um, spreading the workload out for the appellate judges. And so it goes out to this West Texas court, which probably worked in our favor, frankly. And and I should say, and this is very important, I want people to know, I didn't handle the appeal. Um uh an appellate lawyer named Rick Wetzel handled the appeal. Ken and I went out and recruited Rick and said, we want you to take this case. Uh, Rick is one of the finest appellate lawyers around. He wrote the briefs, he argued at oil arguments, and so you know, the credit for this astounding victory goes to Rick.

SPEAKER_03: 12:10

Now, and and I want to talk about the impact this has had on Chris Taylor's. And then if you don't feel comfortable talking about, you know, any of this, we understand. But you know, Chris has been in and out of the courtroom now for six years, going on seven years, over what have ultimately been determined to be justified shootings. And he even the Austin police department stood behind him right up until the moment he was convicted. And once he was con what was he convicted of, by the way?

SPEAKER_01: 12:43

He was convicted of deadly conduct, so Chris and Carl Kreesha were indicted for murder and deadly conduct. They waived the motor account in the indictment and proceeded on deadly conduct.

SPEAKER_03: 12:56

Okay. And so he was he was now been acquitted. But the once once he was convicted, the Austin police work would then fire me.

SPEAKER_01: 13:07

With what we understand.

SPEAKER_03: 13:08

They really didn't have any choice at that point. He's a convicted criminal there. But now that he's been acquitted, I I don't know whether or not Austin can offer him his job back because I guess he would have to go through the hiring process again. He may not want to work in Travis County. We he may not want to work in law enforcement again for that matter. I'm just curious to know the because these cases have ripple effects, and we know it affected him. We know it's affected the Austin Police Department. His family has to be just traumatized by all of this.

SPEAKER_01: 13:40

Yeah, they've been through so much, and uh I'm in awe of Chris because he is a pretty stoic guy and he has rolled with the punches this whole time. And um I think it it's sad, but like true that while he's very happy with this outcome, he's kind of shell-shocked and waited, waiting for the next shoe to drop. What's next? Yeah. What am I gonna have to deal with next?

SPEAKER_02: 14:12

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, well, and I and I think it's important to kind of point this out too. I think that back to your point about the Ramos and the timing of everything and the George Floyd. I think admittedly, we at TFBA certainly, uh in law enforcement during that time, we kind of got hit in the mouth. We didn't know, we knew we needed to respond, and we needed we we knew that something needed to be done, but we didn't have our, we didn't prepare for war at that point, knowing of understanding really how complex and challenging the whole George Floyd aspect was going to be across the nation.

SPEAKER_03: 14:43

You know, people don't people don't remember, and some people didn't even realize at the time, the defund the police movement was going on as a result of all this, too. And Austin Police Department had their budget cut by fully one-third uh while that was going on. And and so it's not just the Chris Taylor case that or cases that have negatively impacted Austin PD, it was a whole bunch of other stuff, but certainly this is hurting their recruiting retention efforts. Right.

SPEAKER_01: 15:10

Oh, yes. And and of course, I'm I'm a lawyer, not an officer, but I can't help but to think of you know, if you're a high-quality, talented young person who wants a career in law enforcement, uh do you do you go to Austin or do you go to Fort Worth? So do you kind of, you know, Dacadutches? Where where do you go? But you probably don't come to Austin.

SPEAKER_03: 15:33

Well, and in all honesty, you know, another reason why we wanted to have this conversation today is because the trial of of Adrian Gonzalez from Uvalde ISD started yesterday, done in Corpus Christi. Uh they've seen it in hearing, so the trial is starting in earnest today. But it strikes me that the irony of these two cases strikes me because Chris Taylor was convicted because he in the split second he had to make a decision, he took the shot. He ran toward danger. He ran toward danger and he took the shot. Adrian Gonzales has been indicted on 19 counts of endangering a child because he ran toward danger and in that split second did not shoot an 18-year-old kid in the back. What message are we sending to law enforcement or people who might be thinking about law enforcement as a career where no matter what you do, you're gonna be dragged in front of a jury and treated like a criminal. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 16:31

No, one thing I'm happy about in that case is they were able to get a change of venue. So it's not been held in Uvaldi, it's down in Corpus. We've tried, we tried on the Ramos case to get a change of venue, and we've been denied at every turn. But hopefully that case being moved to Corpus will will help us in the future if we need a change in venue.

SPEAKER_03: 16:57

Well, maybe I if you could I s I understand your point. Help us legally defend these officers who shouldn't be on trial at all. Right. And our point is the prosecuting of these officers is causing so much of an effect. Uh like say it's it's it's hurting the profession, it's hurting the agencies, it's hurting these individuals. By the way, when you talk to Chris, when he's ready, when he feels like we'd love to talk to him about his future night, he's giving my number to Sherry come by talk to us. Um but what about how what kind of impact does it have on you as the attorney?

SPEAKER_01: 17:36

You know, I I don't do a good job of stopping and thinking about that sort of thing. Um you know, we're we got this incredible outcome for crits. Um, but honestly, what I'm focused on is in June of this year, we're gonna try the first uh case from the May 2020 riots here in Auften, in Austin. Yep. And we're gonna be representing Officer Chance Bretches, who uh fired a beam faithful shotgun uh and a rioter was injured. And so, you know, that's on the horizon. And we my team is preparing for that case, you know, right now.

SPEAKER_03: 18:24

But I by the way, I'm so glad you used the term rioter. I still said peaceful preventation. Yeah, I the other day I was thinking, well, what it was a mostly peaceful bombing Venezuela. Right.

SPEAKER_02: 18:35

But you know, I I it's it this, in my opinion, this acquittal, this whole criminal justice episode that took place when Taylor. I think it sends a message to people in Austin, at Travis County, and really across the state. We're seeing the positivity of a positive Harris County District Attorney's Office with Kim Hawks vacate, you know, vacating and now have a new DA in there that's, you know, even though that they're a part of the political party, they're still balanced in the sense of sensible decisions that one could kind of understand to a certain extent. To me, it sends a message to Garza and and and those far left in Travis County that the pendulum might be swinging back, right? I think that Austin Knights are looking at the aspect that you know crime rights through the roof when you defund police. Uh, when you target cops on on political beliefs and weaponize the Texas penal code, it's not good for everybody, right? It's not good, it's not just good for law. It's it's not good for anybody within Travis County. And so hopefully, with this trial coming up in the in the summertime, maybe it'll it'll kind of I guess I sit you.

SPEAKER_03: 19:39

No, I don't see Garz, I don't see Garza ever, ever flipping, changing his his position on all this. Um maybe the voters at some point finally get tired of this nonsense, but I was thinking about this in relation to the Uvalda case. Why what why are you indicting this cop and herondo, achieve Arundondo's trial is set for later on? But the superintendent hasn't been indicted. All right. That is the superintendent, not just as cultivator of because there were multiple reports about the doors not locking, about the fence not being high, it was all kinds of stuff that weren't in compliance with state regulations.

SPEAKER_02: 20:15

I think that's equal safety. The larger question and answer is we we all know why. About the teachers who left the doors open. We all know why they're on trial. They that when when when that many children are we gotta hold somebody accountable. Well, not even that. They have to have a scapegoat. You have to hold somebody in front of the public and say, this is the this is the villain.

SPEAKER_03: 20:32

Okay. I just I guess I don't understand how how it is that we don't consider the impact on the victims here. And I understand we've got 19 dead children, two dead adults, we but we've got all those families. And by indicting this officer and taking them to trial, I think you give them some sort of false hope that they're gonna get a closure here. And if he's convicted, they're not gonna be any less tortured. That's I agree by what happened. If he's acquitted, they're gonna be even more tortured. I don't understand why the project, because I'm convinced even if they get a conviction, it's overturned on appeal on somehow.

SPEAKER_01: 21:06

Well, uh, you know, to the to the question you asked just a moment ago, I do think the attitudes are shifting. Yeah. But I agree with Kevin. Jose Garza's never gonna change. And the reason, part of the reason behind that is he cannot. And here's what I mean. You you guys may be familiar with this organization called the REN Collected. Yep. And uh that's an organization funded by George Soros that uh promises and delivers campaign funding and probably other funding to progressive prosecutors. In exchange, those prosecutors take policy direction from the RAN collectives. And uh I think they are really the people calling the shots in terms of law enforcement cases. Yeah. And uh there's a wonderful, very detailed, very well researched report from the law enforcement. Equal to Fett's foundation about the Ren Collective. And if you can get it online, and I'd encourage everybody to read that.

SPEAKER_02: 22:08

Yeah. And that's that's what's enforcing is that the major cities within Texas have all been Soros funded. I mean, I can't think of one. You got San Antonio, Austin, Dallas, uh, Fort Worth, not so much, but we're seeing some Soros type uh characteristics going from that district attorney because of some you know federal uh promises on on the other side of it. And then Houston, which we're seeing a little bit of change in Houston, but it's just unfortunate that these major cities are are suffering from that.

SPEAKER_03: 22:36

I'm I'm hearing the Challenge has actually now had a couple of missteps as well down in Harris County, but we'll we'll see if we'll see. So what kind of support network do you have? Maybe or something. Yeah, so this when you have to deal with because I might be our two would be this has got to have an impact on.

SPEAKER_01: 22:55

Well, uh I like to think I have a great support gap. I have a lot of close friends, including military buddies. You know, tomorrow night I'll be with some other guys I served with. We get together once a month. Uh I I of course am a wonderful wife and family. I work with a very supportive team in my office. And then um I have relationships with counselors and therapists because oftentimes, especially in our military cases, we need to hook up a client with a provider. And we have good relationships so that, you know, if if they don't take this type of insurance, maybe they take this type of insurance. And we we have a network of folks who work with us if this need be.

SPEAKER_03: 23:46

Well, I'm I'm glad to hear that. I'm I'm I'm certain that your military training, your military background is also something very helpful for you to again draw upon. Uh we have more and more military veterans that are getting into law and gotten into law enforcement over the last 10 years, uh, maybe even longer than that. And I think that helps. But it also, I think, complicates banners. Remember, after George Floyd, the defund movement, there was a big cry and whatever the terminology is, that cops should not be warriors. We should not militarize our beliefs. They should be guardians and not warriors. And then you validate that, and then they're screaming, where were the warriors? You know? Yeah. And people just don't realize that cops have to be capable of being bulked. And they have to be capable of flipping a switch in a split second, going from one to the other. And I I guess you better than anybody understands how difficult that is.

SPEAKER_01: 24:48

I think, you know, so in the military, uh, I wasn't I wasn't a lawyer. That was I was never a lawyer for the military with Oh, you weren't Jag, no. No. So I was a uh special forces officer of Green Brad.

SPEAKER_03: 25:02

And uh I said, you really understand it better than both.

SPEAKER_01: 25:05

Well, but I'm I I gotta tell you, I'm always very careful to when I'm talking to a new police officer client to say to make sure they understand I've never been a and um I don't I think it's important for me to state that upfront. I I have a lot of insight at this point, and maybe if your shot group is high into the right, I can tell you about how we get it back on target. But um I think it's important for for me and anybody else that does what I do to understand your limitations because having never been an officer, uh, I don't think I'm qualified to um be critical of split-second decisions where life and death is on the line.

SPEAKER_03: 25:59

And amazingly, the U.S. Supreme Court has said that repeatedly.

SPEAKER_02: 26:04

Yes. Well, I I you know, look knowing knowing this, I've got several friends of mine that are that are you know to that tier uh in their military service. And I understand that you were a Green Marie. Uh it kind of goes at hand in hand on why I think you're you you remain committed to the mission and why you remain committed to the mission of serving uh those who serve Texas and within. But what's interesting is that just like Kevin said, you may not have been a cop. And I think law enforcement to a certain degree is probably it is the toughest job in the world because compared to a military service, you have to add compassion and you have to have grace within the enforcement actions and the military, you don't necessarily need those qualities within those job performances, and you have to have those to be a cop. And so then you have the complexities of having a progressive DAs and and and those that weaponized the Texas Penal Code in order to fulfill their political agenda, and it's just a complex situation.

SPEAKER_03: 26:53

But cool. And I've I've said this repeatedly over the last, I don't know, couple of decades. Back when I was a cop, and I started way, way back, but we were we were policing less than 10% of the population. You know, there was there was the 90 plus percent of the population that we just, yeah, we we dealt with them on traffic stocks and stuff and so forth, but we've been policing that small group of folks who just didn't believe the rules applied to them. And now these cops out there today, and I couldn't do the job anymore because we're not policing that group anymore. Now we're police policing an entire population that just doesn't think we should have rules at all. Not that the rules don't apply to them, but they just don't believe we've got rules. And so we're asking cops to do the impossible and then complaining when we get really remarkably great results out of them.

SPEAKER_02: 27:45

Yeah, yeah. It's it's it's insane what they're at. And speaking of crazy stuff, you see, I watched a really complex video from Mississippi State uh state church where there's an accident on the interstate. This is a crazy one of those crazy ass stories this guy wants to believe, and it was a traffic accident where wild monkeys were had gotten out of the freeway. And so this thing, and now they're being criticized by Pete in Mississippi. They're in Mississippi. There were wild monkeys inside this truck, and uh, I think 21 had gotten out. Okay, and the trooper is giving the manifest that these monkeys are infected with COVID, herpes, other dangerous diseases. And so this trooper's mindset's like one of these monkeys. I mean, I've seen what is it, breakout? Where the is that what it's called? Outbreak. Outbreak, yeah, yeah. And so I'm thinking, Jesus Christ. And so you can tell there's a switch, because he's kind of laughing about it. He's like, Yeah, I heard monkeys were on the interstate, and I just had to come over here to kind of check this out. And then you can tell a switch flipped. Like, oh shit, this is way more dangerous than when I tell you. All of a sudden it's monkeys. Well, there's a means. Exactly. They're shut down the interstate, and they were they're smoke-checking monkeys, but now I come to find out these monkeys were going to be infected. They weren't infected yet. So now they're they're being you know criticized or ridiculed for you know taking these monkeys out. But to your point, is that it's like take the shot or not take a shot. Either way, I think when you're dealing with monkeys, you always say, especially when you're informed, they're all infected with STDs. So you all heard that coming from your lawyer. Yeah. But anyway, it's a it's a complex situation. But man, we can't thank you uh enough for coming on. Um if you want to dive into your counterpart, your partner, uh, that we lost in August and talk about kind of what resources are out there. Uh, we certainly do that at this point.

SPEAKER_01: 29:32

Yeah, so uh it's it's not a secret within the uh Austin law enforcement community that uh Ken took his own life. And um all of us to work closely with him would devastate it. And it's not something that passes quickly. And to compound things, it uh you know, so we are trial partners, we maintained our own separate practices, and so it made sense for me to uh be the person to close down his law firm. And so um there's part of my grieving process has been to be extremely pissed off at him because of the aspect involved in Chapendata's law practice. And um I don't think we're ever gonna know or understand uh the why behind this. And I come to accept that one of the things that that I did to make sure I was processing everything appropriately was to go get counseling, right? Because I I I didn't know if I needed it or not, but I know that I know from the military uh that our default our default decision making is I'm tough, I'm mentally tough, I'm capable, I don't need counseling, I don't need my head shrugged. And I think that is 100% the wrong answer. Yeah, um because counseling never hurt anybody. So I went to see uh psychologist May Fun Tanya Glenn, who's gonna also?

SPEAKER_02: 31:17

Yeah, of course, great friends at TFBA.

SPEAKER_01: 31:20

She works with all kinds of first responders. And um it's the other thing I did was to make sure my team knew that I was doing this. And I felt like I owed it to myself and my family first. I owed it to my clients, but I also owed it to my team of attorneys and sports staff I lead to to make sure this didn't get clogged in my head. And somehow I ended up with mental health issues as a result of what had happened. Um, and so, you know, I put it on my calendar, Doug out of the office, not not just out of the office, but Doug counseling, right? And when people would uh try to schedule something with me and it conflicted with counseling, I'd say, can't, I'm going to counseling. Just so everybody understood that there's nothing to be ashamed of. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03: 32:15

Yeah. And um and then it gets even more complicated for cops, though. And and I'll again I'll go back to my experience, but with regard to Ken, we we have no way of knowing. But you would hate to think that any of these cases that he's worked on somehow contributed to that.

SPEAKER_01: 32:34

Yeah, being being an attorney, a trial attorney is extremely stressful, right? Because if you if you mess something up, and we live through this, right? If you mess something up, um your client goes to prison. Right, right. And so um that is extremely stressful, as is being a law enforcement officer. I will say though, however, in Ken's case, he handled the stress better than anybody else I've known, which is what made him such a great trial player. Uh he was unflappable in the corpion. And um I will miss working with him dearly.

SPEAKER_03: 33:15

Yeah, well, certainly we law enforcement as a whole lost an advocate, lost a great support system there. Um back to the to your point about counseling, don't curtain anybody. Unfortunately, historically in law enforcement, if officers have a have come forward and said, I need counseling, too many of them have gotten fired because of it. Because you know, there's still a large percentage of cops in Texas that work in completely and totally out of employment environments, and sheriffs and keys just wouldn't stand behind them. Now that has there's been a shift, there's been a kind of a new uh push to work. And even some some statutes have been passed to to encourage officers to come forward. But there's still agencies out there where they can't, it's just impossible. So they suffer in silence. And like you said, the big thing about counseling is not having somebody shrink your head, it's just having somebody you can know you can talk to that's not gonna run tell your department about it, not gonna run tell somebody else about it. And that is that's huge for yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 34:20

Well, and I think the cops, you know, majority, let's just say, just hypothetically speaking from my my perspective, me being a man married to a woman, and and I could I couldn't tell my wife about situations that I was dealing with. I was supposed to be, you know, viewed as the big bad husband, and that needle could handle all the stress. And, you know, I had my my certainly my struggles, and and it took a lot for me to, you know, share those dark, deep secrets with her and to saying, hey, uh, I'm not okay. And thankfully there were some opportunities that you know this organization gave me in order to transplant myself to Central Texas. But the to your point, it's okay to talk about it. It's okay that you're not okay, right?

SPEAKER_01: 34:56

And and I think or or even if you you know, who are we to self-diagnose? Yeah, so we don't know if we're okay or not at the time.

SPEAKER_02: 35:04

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 35:05

So better to better to be proactive to make sure you don't have a problem.

SPEAKER_02: 35:10

Right. And to your point about him being him not not you couldn't recognize the stress. He looked like it was it didn't affect him at all. He was, you know, fearless in the courtroom and he carried he carried his stuff well.

SPEAKER_03: 35:20

Everybody carries it differently. For officers out there listening that might be suffering in silence, the job isn't even if you're running the risk of losing that job. I'm sorry, take care of your hip cell first. And it will deal with the job situation afterwards. So like I said, there are now some protections, some statutory protections in place, but find somebody you can talk to, please. It's it's critical.

SPEAKER_02: 35:45

Yeah. I think that's a good point to uh to end on today. I think that uh right now, if you're struggling, do not hesitate to Kennedy. You can reach out to us at TNPA and we can get you in contact with some counseling. One of the Hunter Coplines certainly is a good advocate and a good resource that you can use. But don't suffer alone and don't remain silent. I think it's important for you and your family and your colleagues, and again to those colleagues out there that recognize that your partners are struggling. Reach out. A simple phone call can help save a life.

SPEAKER_03: 36:12

Before we sign off, by the way, you said something earlier. By the way, Doug and I have never met before today. I think we've talked on the phone maybe a time or two, emailed back before, but we never met face to face until today. I was surprised to hear you say you've got how many lawyers a year offer? Uh counting me nine. Okay. And you've got you've got offices in Austin, San Antonio, Taylor, and we're working on an office in Queen. And Lockhart today, you say you've got a lawyer done in Lockhart. Uh, lives there, don't we don't have an office? That's a big chunk of central and and you know South Texas, though. For TFN members, they're available if you need the fucking butcher. I can't make it up. Absolutely. Using H1.

SPEAKER_02: 37:00

Hey, welcome to TV. Welcome to the 2026 year old viewers fan at a lot of holiday station talking 2026 year old price store. That's the best lost T A P A.