HOUSTON – Family members identified the man who was struck by a Houston police officer in north Harris County late Wednesday.
The crash happened in the 5500 block of Aldine Bender near Picton Drive at around 11:37 p.m.
Officials with HPD said the officer was responding to a call without lights or sirens turned on.
At some point, the victim, identified as 24-year-old Caleb Swafford by family members, was walking to a friend’s house to spend the night there, when the HPD officer, driving in the middle lane on Aldine Bender, struck him.
The officer got out of the vehicle and tried to save Swafford, but he died at the scene, officials said.
The victim’s brother, Cameron Swafford, told KPRC 2′s Re’Chelle Turner that he saw his body before it was removed from the scene.
“It was terrible. that’s why I’m like you had to be speeding to hit somebody that hard,” he said. “Somebody looking how he looking you had to be speeding. I have seen people get hit by a car going like 40 like no…he was going like 80 to really hit somebody that hard.”
Sean Teare, with Harris County District Attorney’s Office, said the vehicular crime’s division will present the case to a grand jury to see if the officer will face any charges.
“We’ve got to figure out all of the different facets that went into this crash so between the three agencies (HPD, HCSO, and the Harris County DA’s Office), we’re gonna do that.” he said. “It’s nothing that we’re going to be able to do quickly, we’ve got to go through and determine the exact speed that would involve the real lighting with the line of sight was a number of different things that are going to go into this.”