Witness Testifies that San Antonio Cop Shot Marquise Jones in the Back & He Had No Gun in His Hand or Waist

From [HERE] and [HERE] The civil trial is underway following the death of young black man at the hands of a San Antonio cop. The family of Marquise Jones has brought the city of San Antonio and SAPD to court in a long-awaited lawsuit.

They're seeking damages in Jones’ death, which happened more than three years ago, in February, 2014.

The police officer who killed Jones, Robert Encina, was no-billed in 2015. But since the incident, numerous witnesses have gone on record giving their accounts.

On Tuesday, a new witness came forward with what the prosecution alleges is the clearest first-hand account yet.

James Brantley was at Chachos and Chaluccis the night Jones was killed. Encina shot Jones in the back as he ran away from the scene of a minor fender bender in the drive through.  

SAPD and the city have long maintained Jones had a gun, and that Encina was justified in shooting him

But Brantley said he had a clear view of not only his hands, but also the waist of his pants, and said without question there was no gun.

Brantley had just left a bar and wanted some chicken wings before heading home the morning of February 28, 2014, so he stopped by the Chacho's off Perrin Beitel Road. It was there, while parked in the restaurant's drive-thru lane, that Brantley claims he saw Robert Encina shoot and kill an unarmed Marquise Jones as he ran toward the street. 

In fact, Brantley says he was so close to the shooting his ears were ringing when the gunfire stopped. He says Encina, an off-duty San Antonio Police Department officer working security at the northeast side restaurant, walked up to his window after the shooting to ask Brantley if he saw a gun in Jones' hand. Brantley says Encina gave him a strange look and walked away when he replied, "He didn't have no gun. You killed that man" (another news account reported, “Man, I didn’t see nothing. You just killed a man.” -The federal courthouse does not allow cameras inside.)

Not long after that, another officer came and asked Brantley to move his car away from the scene. Brantley says the officer had to help him maneuver around bullet casings. No one from SAPD would interview Brantley or ask him for a witness statement that morning. If they had, Brantley's would have been the sixth witness account taken by police that morning indicating Jones did not have a gun in his hand when Encina shot him in the back. Brantley says he came forward sometime last year after seeing a news report that officials had cleared Encina of wrongdoing in the case. 

Then he got an unexplained visitor. 

In court Tuesday morning, as he testified in the trial over the federal lawsuit Jones' family filed against Encina and SAPD, Brantley claimed an unmarked police cruiser followed him to his car last spring, sometime after he signed an affidavit swearing that he witnessed the shooting and that Jones didn't wield a weapon at officer Encina when he was killed. Brantley said it was nighttime and he was walking to his car, about to go pick up his young daughter, when he noticed he was being followed. Eventually, a man got out of the unmarked cruiser, asked Brantley who he was, cuffed his hands behind his back, put him in the back of the car, and then started driving downtown.

Or as Brantley put it in his deposition: "I'm against the car, handcuffs, and back seat. That quick."

In court Tuesday, Brantley testified that he assumed the car was an unmarked police cruiser because that's what it looked like inside, including a metal grate with a rifle rack that separated the back from the front seats (he called it a "police cage"). The man who detained him — wearing a blue shirt, slacks and boots — looked like a cop, but didn't show Brantley a badge and wouldn't answer any of his questions. "You have to go downtown," was all the guy would tell him, according to Brantley's court testimony. 

Brantley says the mystery man drove him downtown, somewhere off Frio Street, where another car met up with them. The man who detained Brantley got out of the car and started talking to the other driver — Brantley estimates they chatted for maybe 20 minutes while he was still cuffed in the back seat. And then, the maybe-cop got back in the car and drove Brantley home, no explanation. [MORE]

Jones’ sister, Whitney, also took the stand Tuesday. She was in the same car as Jones when the shooting happened. She testified Jones didn't have a gun.

In addition she described the way SAPD treated her, forbidding her from calling her mom and placing her in a cruiser where she had a clear view of her brother’s dead body lying on the street.

"It was like an hour or two I was sitting in the car and cops were all over and nobody was talking to me,” Whitney Jones said. “And he was lying right there."

The city’s attorney pointed out several times that Jones had cocaine and alcohol in his system at the time, both in violation of his probation.

They also questioned why Brantley didn't come forward with his testimony until more than two years after the incident. Brantley said police on the scene didn’t seem interested in his account, and he didn’t know who to go to.