Whipped Cream Difficulties

The Harris County DA’s office is apparently going to drop the murder charges against Chimene Onyeri.

You may remember Mr. Onyeri as the “person of interest” in the shooting of Judge Julie Kocurek. (Previously.)

Why are the charges being dropped? Reply hazy, ask again later. But:

1)

The dismissal of the charge against 28-year-old Chimene Onyeri will allow him to be brought to Austin — likely in the next few days — to face a motion to revoke his probation on a 2012 larceny charge in Travis County, Onyeri’s Houston attorney, Sam Adamo, said.

2)

Prosecutors have been investigating the case since the November attack on Kocurek but have not rushed to charge him since he has been behind bars on the Houston murder charge. It is unclear now if Austin police and the Travis County District Attorney’s Office will expedite their decision to bring charges.

This is still breaking and much of it is speculative, but it is a curious development. Why would the HCDA’s office drop a murder charge, just so Travis County could go after an alleged judge shooter? Was the murder charge weak to begin with, and is the evidence in the judge shooting better? Is is more politically palatable to go after him for shooting at (but not killing) the judge rather than killing a regular citizen? He’s more than likely going to die in prison no matter what. (Assuming he is convicted: Onyeri is at least entitled to some presumption of innocence.)

This entry was posted on Friday, May 13th, 2016 at 11:42 am and is filed under Austin, Cops, HCDA, Law. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.