Officer Granted Immunity in Killing of Unarmed Man

An Austin police officer who was being criminally prosecuted for shooting and killing an unarmed black man is no longer facing a manslaughter charge after a federal judge granted him immunity from state charges because he had been working for a federal task force.

Charles Kleinert, 51, killed 32-year-old Larry Jackson Jr. while serving as a City of Austin police officer. He argued that he enjoyed immunity under the US constitution, and, on Thursday evening, Texas Judge Lee Yeakel ruled that he was correct.

Kleinert, who had been investigating an unrelated bank robbery for his federal task force, began to chase Jackson one evening in July 2013. An altercation ensued, and Kleinert shot Jackson in the neck. According to The Guardian, Yeakel said that the Texas courts had no jurisdiction over Kleinert because he was investigating an unrelated bank robbery for his federal task force, and believed Kleinert’s actions “were no more than was necessary and proper.”

• Want more Downtown Austin news? Click here for our daily newsletter.

“This is a legal technicality that will allow a killer to walk free,” the Jackson family attorney Adam Loewy told the paper. “It is one of the most horrendous moments in the history of civil rights in this country.”

The supremacy clause of the constitution states that federal law “shall be the supreme law of the land” and takes primacy over state law.” Using this clause, Kleinert’s lawyers convinced the judge that while he had been employed by Austin, “he was a specially deputised agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a specially deputised United States deputy marshal, and a member of a federal task force and was pursuing his duties as a federal officer when he shot Jackson,” according to the paper.

Kleinert claimed that he accidentally fired his pistol after striking Jackson twice with it. According to the paper, state prosecutors argued that Kleinert was acting as an Austin police department detective when he pursued Jackson, who began running immediately after try to enter a locked back door at the bank where Kleinert was collecting surveillance footage of an earlier armed robbery. Prosecutors suggested that Jackson may have been trying to cash a fraudulent check, according to the paper.

The court ruled that the officer was entitled to pursue Jackson and physically restrain him.

APD Police Chief Art Acevedo issued a statement to the public in regards to the Kleinert ruling.

“The Austin Police Department respects the court’s ruling and the rule of law. Our thoughts are with everyone involved in this tragic incident and their families,” Acevedo said in the statement.

“I have reached out to community leaders and have shared the aforementioned thoughts on this matter. I know Austin citizens have been aware of the possibility of this judicial ruling in the criminal case, and we have had many conversations about it in the community. I hope all parties will continue a productive dialogue.”

Loewy stated that he plans to respond by asking the U.S. Department of Justice to bring an unlikely federal persecution against Kleinert.

[Photo: Statesman]