AUSTIN, Texas — Day 3 of testimony in the trial of two former Williamson County deputies charged with manslaughter in the death of Javier Ambler wrapped up on Wednesday, with the jury watching more body and dash camera video.
Two witnesses testified on Wednesday, including Ruby Garson, an associate producer and coordinator from the show "Live PD," who was working when the encounter between the deputies and Ambler took place.
Garson said she was riding with Deputy Zach Camden that night, in the backseat. In her testimony, she described what she remembers about the Taser use. She said she remembers hearing Ambler say he had a heart condition. She also remembers seeing other law enforcement officers joining the deputies.
During Garson's testimony, the court watched dash camera video from Deputy J.J. Johnson.
The jury also heard from Det. Erin Truho, who is the lead detective on the case. She continued her testimony from Tuesday. The court watched more body and dash camera footage, with portions of it in slow motion. Truho testified about her analysis of the investigation with the state questioning her while watching the video.
"Can you see what's happening here?" prosecutor Holly Taylor asked Truho while the video of the encounter between Ambler and the deputies took place.
"Looks like Camden is deploying a Taser. Looks like Deputy Johnson is pushing Mr. Ambler down, towards the ground," Truho said.
"What happened there?" Taylor asked.
"Just picked up his right hand. It was behind his back," Truho said.
"Can you tell where the Taser is?" Taylor asked.
"It's somewhere in his back, middle back maybe," Truho said.
Afterwards, the defense questioned Truho on her history of arresting people and her knowledge of Tasers.
"Were you ever in a situation – have you ever been in a situation – where you have to arrest someone and you go to handcuff them and take them into custody and they start to object, they start to complain, they start to feign other problems, including health problems, to try to convince you to not put the cuffs on?" defense attorney Doug O'Connell asked.
"Yes," Truho said.
"And when somebody, in your experience, is being non-complaint and resisting and they start to tell you about why you should not put the handcuffs on, what did you do?" O'Connell asked.
"Put the handcuffs on anyway," Truho said.
The defense also asked Truho to walk through the investigation from the beginning.
During the trial, the defense brought up that the Travis County District Attorney's Office failed to extract data from Ambler's phones and turn it over to the defense. The defense said the phones could have held information that Ambler called or texted someone, saying he was already in medical distress during the 22-minute chase. The defense also pointed out that Ambler had a Fitbit, which could have shown cardiac distress prior to use of force.
The defense claims this was a Brady violation of exculpatory evidence, but the judge has not ruled on it. The state claims a Fitbit in a case like this is not important and had no obligation to figure out if the cellphone data was important.
Day 4 of testimony is expected to start back up on Thursday morning.