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For McAllen Police Chief Victor Rodriguez and his department, it was just another day on the force.
It was 11:16 p.m. on Aug. 1 when McAllen officers on patrol heard gunshots in the 3000 block of Gumwood Avenue and quickly responded to the residence of 37-year-old Navy veteran Ponciano Garcia Jr. who suffers from PTSD.
According to police reports, McAllen officers believed Garcia to be barricaded inside his home after having shot a federal agent.
Rodriguez was called to the scene, advised of the situation and he, including two other officers, made entry into the residence. The chief advised his officers to utilize a shield while he used a “cinder block” to open the front door and the trio cleared the residence.
It was then determined that Garcia was inside an aluminum shed on the back east side of the property shooting at his “ceiling.”
“Communications advised us that Mr. Garcia stated that someone had attempted to remove a panel from his window which caused him to fear for his life and that is the reason he began to shoot,” one report said.
Garcia had threatened to shoot anyone on his property but stated he’d allow EMS to take the FBI agents he hurt away for medical assistance. However, there weren’t any federal agents at the scene.
Garcia’s father was at the scene. He had arrived to try and talk his son down to surrender, but police stopped him as it was far too dangerous.
At one point, Garcia opened the shed’s front door and officers commanded him to raise his hands up, but Garcia began to yell, backed up into the shed while reaching for his waistline. An officer took a single shot before Garcia fell back into the shed and closed the door, another report stated.
Knowing they had Garcia now contained to the shed, Rodriguez determined that all he needed was a diversion.
“The steps we took forward were option number one, so to speak,” Rodriguez said. “We had a multifaceted breach of his property, so he had no idea where we were coming from.”
Rodriguez planned to have him and his officers break all the shed’s windows at the same time and shoot in Pava powder, or pepper balls, to saturate the room Garcia was inside of.
“Chief Rodriguez used a brick to break the window to the door of the metal shed while the Pava powder was shot inside the room to saturate it,” another report said.
Following the breach, fellow officers opened the front door and dragged Garcia out after a struggle and placed him in handcuffs. He was bleeding from his right elbow and stated he was only grazed by the bullet but then said it was due to the glass, declining EMS assistance.
Ponciano Garcia Sr. was then advised that his son was unharmed and would be taken into custody for charges of discharging a firearm in a municipality.
Dr. Michael R. Sanchez, a lecturer in Criminal Justice at the University of Rio Grande Valley, could only describe Rodriguez’s actions that night as “good leadership” and commended the chief.
“I actually respect what he did because there’s too much of people who don’t need to be shot, but he found a way to take him into custody without having to shoot him and at risk to himself, which a lot of chiefs wouldn’t do, so I think that’s very commendable,” Sanchez said.
Sanchez explained that these sort of police responses to people experiencing a mental health crisis vary from department to department and has been a point of contention in law enforcement for a while now, adding that the needle is not moving on the issue.
Some police departments are now hiring mental health specialists and officers who go out into the field with mental health experts to deal with these calls peacefully rather than treating them as threats.
According to Sanchez, these mental health experts are important for deescalating situations or calls involving a person experiencing a mental health crisis. However, it doesn’t mean they aren’t a danger to themselves or others.
“It’s a double edged sword and a lot of the time … people sympathetic to the idea of keeping the peace don’t realize that you can’t just deescalate an emotionally disturbed person,” Sanchez said. “Sometimes they’re extremely dangerous … so, it puts the police in a very difficult spot and I think was an excellent example of a chief going above and beyond to try to find a way to take this guy into custody without having to apply deadly force.”
Rodriguez says that deadly force should always be the last option, but adds that the opportunity is not always guaranteed. Rodriguez and his department will always prioritize the safety of the citizens and officers at the scene.
The chief described the actions taken that night as “nontraditional.” It was the circumstances of the events and how they unfolded that allowed McAllen police to take Garcia into custody without harm.
Rodriguez doesn’t take the full credit for the non-deadly apprehension and commended his officers for creating that opportunity.
“We have excellent police men and women at McAllen PD,” Rodriguez said. “They were responsive. They’re the ones that were on patrol, that heard the gunfire, were able to narrow down the location, were able to contain, were able to stay safe.
“That allowed all of us to act.”
The chief also credited their training for their response that night.
For Rodriguez and his team, “it’s just another day at work.”
