SAN ANTONIO – Monday marked one year since former San Antonio Police officer James Brennand shot then-17-year-old Erik Cantu in a McDonald’s parking lot and while there have been a lot of updates since the shooting, a trial date for the former officer has still not been set.
The shooting on Oct. 2, 2022, garnered attention from national media outlets and led to Brennand’s firing. At the time, Brennand was a probationary officer who had been on the force for about seven months. He was fired for violating departmental tactics and procedures days after the shooting, SAPD officials previously said.
Three days after the shooting, SAPD released portions of body-worn camera footage that showed Brennand firing multiple rounds into a vehicle where Cantu and his then-17-year-old female friend Emily Proulx were eating.
Brennand said he recognized the vehicle as the same one that “fled from [him] the other day.”
SAPD records viewed by KSAT Investigates showed that Cantu’s vehicle had evaded Brennand the night before and that the teenager was driving the same maroon BMW sedan during both incidents — when he was accused of evading Brennand on Oct. 1, and again when Brennand shot Cantu after he tried to flee the officer a second time.
Footage of the incident shows that Brennand did not announce himself as an officer before opening the door of Cantu’s vehicle.
Brennand, who suspected that the car was stolen and called for cover, opened the car door and ordered Cantu to “get out of the car” before attempting to physically remove the teenager from the vehicle.
Cantu was then seen putting the vehicle in reverse when the open car door allegedly hit Brennand, who then fired shots into the car with Cantu and Proulx still inside.
Video footage then shows Brennand firing more shots into the back of the vehicle as Cantu put the car in drive and pulled out of the parking lot.
According to Eric Cantu, Erik Cantu’s father, additional video, which has not yet been made public, shows Erik exclaiming, “I’ve been shot.” Eric Cantu said the video shows Brennand replying, “Yes you have, because I shot you.”
“No humanity behind his voice,” Eric Cantu said in a press conference last year. “He dropped him off at the University Hospital and told his sergeant ‘oh he’ll be fine, he’s going to be ok,’ not knowing what he did to him.”
Victoria Casarez, Cantu’s mother, said one of the most painful things she saw in the additional video was her son calling out saying, “I want my mom,” after he was shot.
San Antonio Police Chief William McManus previously said “There is no question in anybody’s mind looking at that video that the shooting is not justified.”
KSAT requested additional video from Brennand’s camera and other officers, in addition to the police report, under the Texas Public Information Act, on Oct. 25 and 27, 2022. In response, James Kopp, assistant city attorney for San Antonio, sent a letter to the Texas Attorney General asking whether the city can keep the public records private under an exception in the state law.
The Texas Attorney General has the authority to decide whether information can be kept private based on its interpretation of the law. The AG in a ruling allowed the city to withhold the additional requested footage.
On Oct. 11, 2022, more than a week after the shooting, Brennand was charged with two counts of aggravated assault by a public servant and later indicted on those charges in addition to one count of attempted murder. Aggravated assault by a public servant is a first-degree felony with a range of punishment between 5 years and life in prison and attempted murder is a second-degree felony with a punishment range of 2-20 years in prison.
He surrendered to the Bexar County Jail and was released on a $200,000 bond.
Cantu sustained injuries to his stomach, diaphragm, lungs, liver, bicep and forearm after he was shot by Brennand. Cantu was on life support for a number of weeks following the shooting and his parents revealed that Cantu had to undergo a tracheotomy.
At the time, Casarez said her son still had a bullet lodged near his heart and said doctors told her it would do more harm than good to remove it. It’s unclear if that’s still the case.
Cantu was released from the hospital on Nov. 22, 2022.
Cantu was originally charged with evading arrest with a vehicle and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon after attempting to flee on Oct. 2 but those charges were later dismissed.
After the shooting, Proulx told investigators that she was hesitant to ride with Cantu on Oct. 2 because of his actions the night before when he fled police the first time.
She told police that during the Oct. 1 incident, Cantu disregarded the “emergency lights and ‘sped off’” after an officer attempted to pull over Cantu while they drove along a North Side highway, not far from the McDonald’s. “Erik may have just not wanted to ‘deal’ with ‘cops,’” she said in the report.
SAPD in-car camera records, called COBAN, show Brennand encountering a maroon BMW sedan on Oct. 1 around 8:45 p.m. in the area of U.S. Hwy. 281 and Bitters Road. Brennand pulled up behind the vehicle and then activated his emergency lights, at which point the BMW accelerated and moved to the left, in front of another vehicle before driving onto the on-ramp for Highway 281, footage viewed by KSAT Investigates showed.
Brennand did not engage in a pursuit but later documented that the BMW’s license plates came back to another vehicle. SAPD later confirmed that the license plates did not belong to the vehicle Cantu was operating but stated that the vehicle was not stolen.
Both Cantu and Proulx retained famed civil rights attorney Ben Crump following the shooting. Co-counsels Bob Hillard and Paul Grinke are also representing Proulx and Cantu.
Crump is a well-known attorney who specializes in wrongful death lawsuits and has been hired to work on high-profile cases including Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor.
In an unrelated incident on June 28, 2023, both Cantu and Proulx were arrested and charged with theft. San Antonio police responded to a Wal-Mart in the 8500 block of Jones Maltsberger, near Loop 410, for a report of items being stolen from its automotive section. The items included a car charger and air freshener and were concealed in a purse, according to charging records obtained by KSAT Investigates.
Nearly two months later on Aug. 21, 2023, Brennand, Cantu and Proulx were together again — this time in a courtroom where the teens sat in on a hearing for Brennand.
It was Brennand’s third court hearing for the shooting, but the first since Cantu and Proulx were arrested on theft charges.
Court records show Cantu’s next court date for the theft case is scheduled for November.