HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) – A Texas man already being sought for a neighbor’s slaying when he killed a Dallas police officer outside a club was executed Wednesday.
Licho Escamilla was given a lethal injection for the November 2001 death of Christopher Kevin James who was trying to break up a brawl involving Escamilla. The 33-year-old prisoner was pronounced dead at 6:31 p.m. CDT.
Escamilla became the 24th convicted killer put to death this year in the United States. Texas has accounted for 12 of the executions.
The U.S. Supreme Court refused to review his case last week and no additional appeals were filed as his execution neared. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on Monday decided against a reprieve and clemency.
James and three other uniformed officers were working off-duty when the brawl started. Escamilla pulled out a gun and opened fire on the officers as they tried to end the fight.
The bullets from his 9 mm semi-automatic handgun struck James twice, knocking him to the ground. Escamilla then calmly walked up to the officer and fired three more shots into the back of his head before running and exchanging shots with other officers, witnesses said. A second officer wounded in the shootout survived.
A wounded Escamilla was arrested as he tried to carjack a truck.
About a half-dozen Dallas police officers stood at attention and saluted as relatives of the slain officer entered the prison in Huntsville ahead of the execution.
“It’s taken longer than we would have liked,” Frederick Frazier, first vice president of the Dallas Police Association, said.
He said he and others showed up to support James and make sure he’s remembered for the work he did. While officers know they’re risking their lives every day, James’ death has been difficult for them because of how it happened, Frazier added.
James, 34, had earned dozens of commendations during his nearly seven years on the Dallas police force after graduating at the top of his cadet class. He was working the off-duty security job to earn extra money so he and his new wife could buy a house.
Escamilla was 19 at the time of the officer’s killing and a warrant had been issued for him in the shooting death of a West Dallas neighbor nearly three weeks earlier.
Escamilla’s trial attorneys told jurors he was responsible for James’ slaying but argued it didn’t merit a death sentence because James wasn’t officially on duty, meaning the crime didn’t qualify as a capital murder.
He was sentenced to death in October 2002. At his trial in Dallas, Escamilla grabbed a water pitcher off the defense table and threw it at the jury as the judge was reading his sentence.
“We were worried about outbursts during the trial but he managed to keep that under control until the very end,” Wayne Huff, Escamilla’s lead trial lawyer, recalled Tuesday.
Escamilla also started kicking and hitting people and hid under the table until he was subdued by deputies who triggered an electronic stun belt he was wearing.
“Licho is a poster child for the death penalty,” one of the trial prosecutors, Fred Burns, said Tuesday. “That’s pretty much it.”
Testimony showed Escamilla bragged to emergency medical technicians who were treating his wounds that he had killed an officer and injured another and that he’d be out of jail in 48 hours. He also admitted to the slaying during a television interview from jail.