Timeline of events surrounding the death of Wavey Austin in Shreveport Police Department custody:

Saturday April 18, 2020 12:37 PM - A call was placed for a welfare check by a concerned person who knew Mr. Austin who stated he sounded “out of it” and was no longer answering their phone calls. Corporal McClure responded to the call and Austin was located retrieving his laundry. Cpl. McClure and accompanying unidentified officer can be heard in the motor vehicle dash and body-worn camera footage of this call describing Mr. Austin as having “attitude” and saying, “People try to make more out of something than it is.” This footage is available here.

Sunday April 19, 2020 9:18 AM - A call was placed by a “concerned citizen” about a disturbance in Mr. Austin’s apartment. The patrol officer Corporal McClure changed the call to be a welfare concern in his response. In the dash and body-worn camera audio, officers can be heard discussing the prior day’s call, saying Mr. Austin is a “big fat guy”, and at one point mocking him for yelling “Trump” repeatedly. Officers knocked many times while Mr. Austin can be heard yelling in the background from inside his apartment. They rang the doorbell rapidly for multiple seconds. Mr. Austin yells for “Ava” and “Will” multiple times. An unidentified citizen’s voice, possibly the person who made the initial call, can be heard on the audio and Cpl. McClure asks if she can pretend to “be Ava”.

According to SPD Policy 606-14 for Emergency Commitment Procedures, officers should “exercise extreme caution” with subjects in need of mental health services, avoid excitement and upsetting circumstances, and not abuse, belittle, or deceive the subject. Above all, officers should remain professional in conduct. The officers that responded on the morning of April 19, 2020, took action that further excited and upset Wavey Austin as they belittled and mocked his condition.

Footage from this call can be found here.

1:52 PM - A call was placed by a citizen about a man “going crazy” in his apartment. Patrol Officer Zweydoff responded and noted that the subject still would not answer the door, was in his apartment yelling, and “was not a danger to others”. Ofc. Zweydoff advised a courtesy officer should be contacted. In the SPD narrative, Officer Darrell Favis is identified as the Courtesy Officer for the apartments where Mr. Austin lived.

9:15 PM - Officer Darrell Favis receives a call about a tenant at the apartments yelling the entire day. He arrived between 9:40 PM and 10:00 PM and knocked on Mr. Austin’s door, to no answer. He attempted to call the fire department and then called in an officer assistance request. Multiple officers were dispatched, including Lathan Meyers and Corporal A. Wilson. Officers Cory Rabalais, Monica Davis, and Corporal D. Porter all advised responding to the radio call from Ofc. Favis.

Rabalais Body-Worn Camera Recording Part 1

Rabalais Body-Worn Camera Recording Part 2

At multiple points in the SPD supplemental narrative, it is stated that Austin can be heard in the background of dispatch and officer radios. The audio recordings of these radio and dispatch calls were not provided but do fall under the purview of the original public records request and will again be requested.

The vehicle and body-worn camera footage does not have any audiovisual recordings of the “struggle” officers had with Mr. Austin inside of his apartment. It appears that officers turned off their body-worn camera recording equipment during the encounter. Ofc. Rabalais’ audio recording did not start until after he had arrived on scene and made contact with Mr. Austin, contrary to SPD Policy 606-13 on recording. Officer interviews are inconsistent in their description of the events inside the apartment when they handcuffed Mr. Austin and removed him. The following is a brief summary of their reports, with highlighted discrepancies and missing or unclear information.

Ofc. Favis states that he was first to enter the apartment, but it is not clear from any of the summaries who opened the door and by what means. Favis, Rabalais, Meyers, and Davis were all inside of the apartment when Mr. Austin was removed from a seated position in a chair, placed with his knees on the floor in front of the couch and his upper body leaned over the couch, and handcuffed using two pairs of cuffs (due to his size). Favis’s reason for placing Mr. Austin in handcuffs was because he “may become” combative, but the narratives do not indicate a struggle until officers began to restrain him. The four officers then carried Wavey Austin face down out of the apartment by holding his limbs (one on each arm and leg), “gently” placing him on the ground in the breezeway of the apartments, and sitting him up against Ofc. Favis’s knee for evaluation by the fire department and EMS.

In the audio recordings provided by the City, and as described in the officers’ interviews, EMS had trouble finding Mr. Austin’s pulse and he is described as “crashing”, “bottomed out”, and losing consciousness. Mr. Austin was transferred to a stretcher by way of officers and EMS personnel picking him up and placing him onto the stretcher. It’s not clear if that transfer happened in or out of the ambulance, or if he was still cuffed during the transfer, as their reports of these events differ.

One consistent description across all reports is that Mr. Austin’s apartment was in disarray with clothes and trash everywhere. Yet in a report made almost a month later on May 12, 2020, the officer assigned to photograph and document the state of the apartment describes that things were stacked up in a way that they would have been knocked over in a struggle, thus concluding that there had been no struggle. In this same report, Ofc. Walsworth reports that Mr. Austin was handcuffed, placed into the back of a patrol unit without incident, lost consciousness, and that EMS was called to transport him to the hospital, contrary to the officers’ narratives that were present at the scene. The in-custody death of Tommie McGlothen, Jr., just days prior to Wavey Austin’s death, happened when he lost consciousness while handcuffed in the back of a patrol unit.

Finally, as the ambulance transporting Wavey Austin is seen leaving the premises with no lights or sirens, Officer Rabalais and others who remained on the scene are heard discussing how another person died in the back of a patrol car just a few days or weeks prior from “excited delirium”. The voice heard introducing the term into conversation and recounting Tommie McGlothen’s death is believed to be Officer Lathan Meyers. He suggests that when a subject is forced to be still after moving around and struggling, they “crash”.

Officer Rabalais suggests excited delirium to others present, and over a phone call, possibly to a supervisor. He tells the other officers to write their supplemental reports (of which WHYS has not yet received), simultaneously saying “we were just doing our jobs,” and “no punches were thrown.”

Lathan Meyers was placed on administrative leave from April 22, 2020, to June 15, 2020, for an unrelated incident involving illegal disposal of narcotics evidence and failure to write a report.

According to the Shreveport Police Department, no officers were ever placed on leave, disciplined, or terminated as a result of the investigation into Wavey Austin’s death. A web search indicates that Lathan Meyers competes in boxing recreationally.

Sergeant Steve Hathorn was present at Willis Knighton hospital, where Wavey Austin was taken by EMS and died. On-call homicide supervisor Detective Hinderberger was contacted about Mr. Austin’s death, and made contact with Sgt. Hathorn at the hospital. It is unclear what role Sgt. Hathorn played in the events on April 19, 2020.

A web search produced reports that Steve Hathorn shot and killed a suspect, including shots in the back, during a traffic stop for cell phone use in 2003. It was later discovered the suspect was unarmed. Multiple suits, including excessive use of force and discrimination, were ruled in favor of the defendant and dismissed with prejudice. Claims in the suits indicate a culture of violence and discrimination cultivated from then-Chief Roberts, down.

Further records that fall under the purview of the original public records request will be sought in efforts to understand the actions taken by the Shreveport Police Department in response to welfare concerns that resulted in Wavey Austin’s death.