A Texas police officer who shot and wounded a teenager who had been sitting in his car eating a hamburger has been fired, police said. San Antonio Officer James Brennand was fired after shooting Erik Cantu, 17, on Oct. 2 in a fast food restaurant parking lot, police training commander Alyssa Campos said in a video statement released Wednesday. Brennand had responded to an unrelated disturbance at the fast-food restaurant when he saw Cantu inside the car, which had evaded him a day earlier, Campos said. A Texas prosecutor said in a statement Friday that he has not seen enough evidence to file charges against the teenager. “While Sunday’s shooting of an unarmed teenager by a then-San Antonio Police officer remains under investigation, the facts and evidence we have received so far led us to reject the charges against Erik Cantu for further investigation,” Bexar County District Attorney Joe Gonzales said. Brennand, who had been on the force for less than one year, violated his training and police procedures after approaching the car, Campos said. “The officer abruptly opened the driver’s door and ordered the driver out of the car” before the arrival of backup officers that Brennand had requested, Campos…

The survivors who were able to walk out of Sandy Hook Elementary School nearly a decade ago want to share a message of hope with the children of Uvalde, Texas: You will learn how to live with your trauma, pain and grief. And it will get better. They know what’s ahead. There’s shock, followed by numbness. There are struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder. Anxiety. Survivor’s guilt. Anger that these shootings continue to happen in America. Reliving their trauma every time there’s another mass shooting. They know it will be hard to say they are from Uvalde. That well-meaning adults will sometimes make the wrong decisions to protect you. That grief can be unpredictable, and different for everyone. “It’s been nine years since Sandy Hook,” said Ashley Hubner, 17, who was a second grader at the Newtown school when 20 children and six educators were killed on Dec. 14, 2012. “We had nine years for this to not happen again. And yet it did. And now these kids are going to have to go through the same exact thing. That’s just, like, heartbreaking.” On May 24, a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. It was…

After reports last month that a popular Central Texas swimming hole was drying up, Hays County parks say they’re closing Jacob’s Well to swimming for the remainder of the year. The Hays County Parks Department said the watering hole was suffering from significant drought and that significant rainfall was needed to recharge the Trinity Aquifer, which supplies Jacob’s Well with water. All existing reservations will be canceled and refunded automatically in the coming weeks. The swimming hole, the second-largest fully submerged cave in Texas, was shut down in July after running dry for the fifth time in recorded history. The rest of the park remains open for hiking and viewing the spring.
This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser. Courtesy of Texas News – NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth …