Brandon Daniel - Cop Killer - Full Police Interrogation

Daniel, now 32, is on death row for the murder of an Austin police officer in 2012.

AUSTIN – The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has upheld the death sentence for a man convicted of fatally shooting an Austin police officer.

APD Officer Jaime Padron responded to the Walmart near Interstate 35 and Parmer lane around 2:30 a.m. April 6, 2012 for a reported shoplifter. Brandon Daniel struggled with Padron before he shot and killed the officer. Daniel, now 32, was found guilty in February 2014 and sentenced to death.

To whom it may concern,

My name is Brandon Daniel, and I am writing this letter to you from prison. With police brutality once again in the news, and legal reform a hot topic of discussion, I’m writing to tell you about my legal case, in the hope that I might be able to spread awareness about a common but little known condition that is responsible for sending others to prison, and perhaps to leverage your platform to gain support as well. My case involves the class of anti-anxiety medication called benzodiazepines, and it is one of the clearest examples of something called Paradoxical Reaction. I am hoping that you can help me. Let me fill you in on my story.

First, my background is relevant because it demonstrates that the event that led to my being here was not part of a pattern of behavior. I have no violence in my past, no felonies. I was a software engineer, I’m college educated, and I’m from a normal, middle-class home. Everything that happened that night was completely atypical and out of character.

The event took place at Walmart, so it was all captured on surveillance videos. You can see me stumble around the store for twenty minutes, dropping items and running into displays. I was clearly disoriented. A police officer was called, and he confronted me, tackled me, and in the chaos of the moment I shot and killed him. The video shows how hectic the situation was, it clearly was not a thought out and intentional act. It took place in the span of 10 seconds.

Subsequent blood tests revealed that I had 11 times the therapeutic dose of Xanax in my system, and these tests were taken seven hours after the event. With a half life of eleven hours, it is reasonable to assume that the amount of Xanax in my blood that night was extraordinarily high. Plus, as I later discovered, Asians metabolize Benzos faster than other populations and it stays in their systems longer. I am of Asian descent.

In addition to all of this, I was interviewed by police immediately after the event, while I was still highly impaired from the medication. Again, this interview was captured on video, and one can clearly see that I am suffering from the classic symptoms of Benzodiazepines. I had amnesia, stating several times that I couldn’t even remember what day or time it was. I was confabulating, giving different accounts of what happened, none of which turned out to be accurate. And I was experiencing chemical submission, complying with the detectives leading questions against my best interest. All of these are common side-effects of the Benzodiazepine class of pharmaceuticals, which includes the date rape drug “roofies.”

This aspect of my case sets me apart from other similar cases, I believe. My confused statements provide a window into my state of mind at the time, while in many other incidents we can only wonder what is going on in their mind.

After all of this, while awaiting trial, the jailhouse doctors put me on a cocktail of antidepressants: Zoloft, Celexa, Remeron, etc. During this time, I had several suicide attempts and I spent most of the time in observation cells, nearly catatonic. It is my belief that this common, secondary use of pharmaceuticals to medicate inmates awaiting trial, renders them complacent and fairly useless when it comes to contributing to their defense. This results in inmates who are resigned to their fate, able to be easily railroaded by the legal system, regardless of the merits of their case. Since most people who are first entering jail are, understandably, depressed, they are all too willing to accept this ‘treatment’