Silence in court as Dean shooting recounted in audio, video recordings

“We are talking about a period of 65 seconds from the time officer DeCruz made contact with Michael Dean to the time he was shot and dies in his vehicle,” Bell County Assistant District Attorney Stephanie Newell said during her opening statement. “He is pulled from the vehicle and lifesaving measures are taken, but Michael Lorenzo Dean is left there at the intersection of Little River and (Loop 363) under a sheet while police conducted their investigation.”

That series of events began at 700 E. Blackland Road in South Temple where DeCruz was stationed for patrol shortly after working the annual 2019 Temple Christmas Parade as part of the department’s honor guard.

“He calls out the traffic stop and the vehicle will stop at a stop sign,” Newell, who has been employed as an assistant district attorney in Bell County for nearly two decades, said. “He initiates a traffic stop and then the vehicle takes a left from Blackland Road onto Little River Road and heads toward the Loop. You are going to hear nothing on the radio traffic as officer DeCruz pursues this vehicle.”

Defense attorneys withheld their opening statements.

Newell stressed to the diverse jury of nine men and five women who were empanelled earlier that morning how the pursuit, captured both on dashcam and bodycam videos, led to department policy violations.

“He has placed himself in a position of risk by deviating from policy — by not calling this out, by not asking for assistance and by not getting backup there,” Newell said.

The Chrysler PT Cruiser that Dean was driving eventually slowed to a stop at the intersection of Little River Road and Loop 363 before DeCruz pulled his marked patrol vehicle in front, approached with his police-issued handgun drawn, and demanded that Dean turn off the vehicle and hand him the keys.

“As this officer meets resistance pulling those keys out of the car, the gun goes off — shooting Michael Dean in the head,” Newell said.

Audio captured DeCruz wailing after Dean was shot with the officer’s .40 caliber weapon.

‘C’mon, stay with me,” he told Dean repeatedly.

Two of the more than 15 witnesses subpoenaed were interviewed on Tuesday about the circumstances surrounding that 2019 shooting: Amy Retz, the records custodian for the Bell County Communications Center; and Mike Terpstra, a detective with the Temple Police Department’s Criminal Investigation Division.

Retz answered several questions about what can be heard on the audio recording of DeCruz’s radio transmissions with the Bell County Communications Center, while Terpstra answered more than an hour of questions about arriving at the scene, Temple Police Department policies and the dashcam footage obtained from DeCruz’s patrol vehicle.

Although Terpstra told Newell that the Temple Police Department “pretty much has a no pursuit policy” unless they are going after an individual who had just committed a violent offense or violent felony, officers are still required to call out their pursuit over their radios and update their locations.

That did not happen.

“The backup officers only arrive if the pursuit is called out,” Terpstra said.

The Temple Police detective also did not understand why DeCruz positioned his vehicle in front of Dean’s.

“We’re not trained to do that,” Terpstra, who has more than 15 years of experience with the Temple department, said. “That would be considered a felony stop to me, which means you hold back, wait for other officers to get in the area, and then once more officers arrive, you conduct a felony traffic stop with multiple officers there.”

With Terpstra’s testimony concluding at 4:41 p.m. Tuesday, state District Judge Paul LePak of the 264 District Court dismissed the courtroom for the day.

Testimony is expected to resume at 9 a.m. Wednesday in the 146th District Court, a larger courtroom being used for the trial.

“If you’ve taken off work or your schedule allows, and you’re interested and you want to come back, come back and watch the trial,” LePak told residents from the jury pool who were not selected. “What we do here is funded by your tax dollars and if you want to know what’s going on, we want to have you.”

The 2019 Temple shooting death received national attention as officer-involved shootings of black men were publicized following George Floyd’s death while in police custody in Michigan in 2020.

If convicted, DeCruz could face two to 20 years in prison and a fine up to $10,000.