Teen Killed in Texas Drug Raid
Authorities are scant with details right now:
Daniel Castillo Jr. died Tuesday afternoon at a Galveston hospital, hours after the raid on his home in Wharton, located about 50 miles southwest of Houston, the Wharton County District Attorney's Office said.
Authorities declined to release details of the shooting but said it occurred as members of the Wharton County District Attorney Narcotics Task Force, Wharton Police Department Emergency Response Team and the Wharton County Sheriff's Office Star Team were executing the warrant.
Wharton police Capt. Richard Coleman said the officer involved was a six-year veteran of the department. Coleman refused to release the officer's name citing the ongoing investigation.
"He will be put on administrative duty and will not be working the streets until we can sort out exactly what happened," Coleman said.
Coleman said he didn't know whether Castillo was a suspect in the search.
"He lived at the residence where the search warrant was being executed," Coleman said.
District Attorney Josh McCown said the Texas Rangers are participating in the investigation and a Department of Public Safety team was called in to process the scene.
"Anytime you have something like this happen, it is a terrible thing both for the victim's family and for the officer and his family," McCown said.
McCown said the case will likely be presented to a grand jury.
It's the second fatal drug raid in Texas in two days. Make what you will of the comments from authorities. My experience researching these raids is that when a shooting is justified, police are quick to release information (note that in the other raid, we know that the suspect pointed a handgun at police). When a shooting is more questionable, information is harder to come by. More to come, I'm sure.
