Monday, December 09, 2013

University of the Incarnate Word Student Shot to Death by Campus Police Officer

The University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas is a Catholic school founded by the Sisters of the Incarnate Word.   It started out as a small all-female school and is now a large university with a very diverse student population. On Friday, a student named Robert Cameron Redus was pulled over by a campus police officer for allegedly speeding and driving erratically.  The police office shot Cameron Redus multiple times and Redus died.  This article from the San Antonio Express News quotes various people regarding this incident which I will break down in a different format:

Cameron Redus
  • Honors Student
  • "Dozens stood to speak about Redus. Nearly all invoked his outgoing spirit, helpful attitude and affection for everyone he met."
  • " I don't think anyone understands how something like this could happen to someone like Cameron. It makes no sense.”
  •  “He was one of the most level-headed people I've ever met. What I have heard is completely counterintuitive to what I have known him to be,” he said, referring to accounts of Redus initiating an altercation with the officer who shot him."
 
UIW police Cpl. Christopher J. Carter
  • "As authorities investigate the shooting, one of the officer's former neighbors described him as having a confrontational personality.
    “He was mean,” said Hugo Bustillos, who now lives in the two-bedroom apartment near Fort Sam Houston where Carter, 38, used to live."
  • Carter also had run-ins with at least one other tenant over Carter's dog before Carter moved away last year."
  • “He exaggerated a lot,” Bustillos said.
    “He put a lot of false statements on us with our landlord,” Bustillos said. “He said we were smoking pot in front of our kids, but we were just smoking cigarettes.
    “He also made trouble for someone else and got into an argument with” management.
  • "Over the course of Carter's eight-year law career in Texas, he has held nine jobs at eight agencies"
This is a horrible situation that cuts very close to home for me.  I just hope that justice is served for the Redus family and that all at the University are able to pull together to come to some sort of peace.

1 comment:

Sleepless in Texas said...

I live in Alamo Heights (in fact, I'm the Founding President of the Alamo Heights Neighborhood Association).

You've done a very good job of accurately summarizing this very sad and preventable story.