A Texas man has been charged with murder in the killing of an Afghan father who spent years fighting alongside U.S. Green Berets in Afghanistan.

The suspect, Katia Trevon Bougere, 31, was charged with shooting Abdul Rahman Waziri, also 31, in a dispute over parking in Houston. But Bougere hasn’t been arrested. Instead, he received a summons to appear in court next week, as if it were a traffic violation.

It’s the latest bizarre turn in a case that has sparked protests in Houston and prompted Green Berets to write letters to public officials demanding justice for their fallen former comrade.

“This indictment is just the beginning of the justice the Waziri family deserves,” said their attorney, Omar Khawaja.

“A husband and father was senselessly killed, and while we are grateful the grand jury returned a murder charge, it is outrageous that the man accused of taking his life is being allowed to appear by summons — not arrested, not handcuffed, not treated like the violent offender he is alleged to be.”

Asked why prosecutors didn’t issue an arrest warrant, a spokeswoman for the Harris County district attorney’s office responded with a brief statement.

“After a grand jury indicted the defendant, the clerk’s office issued a summons and he’s required to appear in court,” the statement read.

Efforts to reach Bougere were not successful, and it was not immediately clear if he had hired an attorney.

For five years, Waziri served in an elite unit tasked with helping to protect Green Berets in Afghanistan. He made it to the U.S. in 2021 and settled in Houston with his wife and two young daughters, only to be gunned down outside his apartment complex, Houston police said.

    • logicbomb@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Just to be clear, cops show up. One guy is alive, and the other is dead. The alive guy claims they were arguing over parking, and the dead guy is dead because he’s been riddled with bullets from a gun that the alive guy is holding. The dead guy is unarmed.

      They don’t even arrest Bougere. They only confiscate the murder weapon. It’s beyond bizarre. You’d at least expect them to arrest him on suspicion of something.

      • Akasazh@feddit.nl
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        21 hours ago

        The insane thing is that had her not fought for the green berets, nobody would have even heard from it.

      • Almonds@mander.xyz
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        2 days ago

        I don’t understand what confiscating the weapon (and doing nothing else) even really achieves when the murderer owns a company with the word “militia” in the name.

        • mkwt@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          At least it lets the police do some ballistics testing to verify that the bullets at the scene came out of that gun.

          If you can account for all of the bullets and preferably all of the shell casings as well, it goes a long way to rule out more complicated scenarios like additional firearms or shooters.

        • kautau@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          Still have to follow some semblance of protocol so racists can go “well they took his gun away” while privately cheering “white man shoots brown man over parking” because they have that fetish

      • D_C@sh.itjust.works
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        1 day ago

        Cop- “Apparently you killed a guy over some parking?”

        Killer- “Yeah…”
        {Cop vigorously grabs handcuffs}
        “…but he was brown…”
        {cop loosens grip on handcuffs}
        “…and from Afghanistan!”

        Cop- “Time for doughnuts then”

      • fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com
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        1 day ago

        In 2020, he filed paperwork in Texas to launch a company called Black Kartier Militia LLC, according to state records. No other information was immediately available.

        And

        Eddie Cortes, a veteran defense attorney in Houston who has no connection to this case, said it is an unusual course of action but it typically comes down to whether the defendant has hired a lawyer who is known to prosecutors.

        “They’re not going to do this with somebody who is just Joe Blow off the street,” said Cortes. “But they will if the guy has counsel, and he’s a well-respected longtime defense attorney here in town.”

    • jonne@infosec.pub
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      2 days ago

      I feel that in general people awaiting trial shouldn’t be locked up, but if you’re willing to kill someone over parking that’s one of the few cases where the risk of reoffending is so high you should definitely be imprisoned.

      • Snowclone@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        I usually agree but when if mandatory house arrest or jail for domestic abusers happened almost all murders wouldn’t be possible.

        • jonne@infosec.pub
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          1 day ago

          House arrest would be terrible if said victim lives in that house, but yeah, I definitely wouldn’t mind even a stricter standard for DV or stalking offences if the case is bad enough.