Man nearly burned alive during SWAT arrest sues Hays County, San Marcos

AUSTIN (KXAN) – As a Hays County SWAT team boxed in Derek Arredondo’s car where he was passed out inside, officers circled the sedan with rifles drawn. Family members watched and began to dread what might happen next.

“Is it going to end bad, or what?” one of Arredondo’s relatives asked an officer, as police tried to peacefully wake the then-32-year-old found blocking traffic near Interstate 35.

City of San Marcos police had first responded to a welfare check – not a crime in progress – for a driver asleep at the wheel on the night of March 31, 2020. When police discovered it was Arredondo, a “documented” gang member with an extensive rap sheet, they brought in the cavalry. The main problem in the situation, police said, was a visible pistol in the car within grabbing distance.

Arredondo’s background and the handgun raised the situation to a “high-risk apprehension,” according to a SWAT team leader’s sworn affidavit.

Arredondo did not have a history of gun violence, according to DPS records and his attorney, but officers worried he might reach for the gun if he was startled. Should that happen, police were prepared to shoot him, they said at the scene.

Nevertheless, police went ahead with multiple attempts to wake him: bumping his car, flashing lights, banging on the window, sirens. Nothing worked.

As the efforts dragged on for over an hour, some police expressed their own doubts about how the encounter might unfold, according to hours of incident footage reviewed by KXAN that showed multiple vantage points and revealed conversations among officers.

“I’m not optimistic about how this is going to go,” one officer told another at the scene. 

They were right to be concerned.

Nearly burned alive

The ultimate game plan, to smash out the back window of the car and toss in tear gas and flash-bang grenades, went awry quickly. A malfunction in one of those devices ignited Arredondo’s car with him still asleep inside, according to court records. Even as smoke and flames began to consume the car, Arredondo didn’t wake.

Officers called out for a “rescue,” but struggled to free Arredondo from the car. As they screamed for him to get out, they also smashed the driver-side window inward towards him. Arredondo awoke and began howling and flailing inside – apparently unable to manage the door as he inhaled smoke and scalding flames rolled over him.

One officer snaked his arm in and popped the door open. SWAT members pulled Arredondo out. He stood briefly – scorched, moaning and dazed – before officers quickly took him to the ground. His limp and shirtless body was then dragged across the pavement to a safer place to be handcuffed and tended to by paramedics.

Arredondo spent weeks sedated in the hospital recovering from burns to his head, neck, face, torso and limbs, according to court records.

The incident sparked a civil rights lawsuit against Hays County and the City of San Marcos alleging claims of false evidence and conspiracies of silence and obstruction of justice, according to court records.

In a recent ruling, a federal judge said law enforcement’s concerns of a threat posed by Arredondo were reasonable, as was their use of the gas and flash-bang grenade.

The City of San Marcos and Hays County Sheriff’s Office declined to comment or answer KXAN’s questions about the case, citing ongoing litigation.

In court filings, Hays County denied it violated Arredondo's civil rights or engaged in any “unconstitutional seizure, excessive force, retaliation, or any other constitutional violations in their actions.” Hays County also denied it “went on a media smear campaign to justify the officers' actions against Plaintiff.”

In addition, Hays County acknowledged no officers were disciplined as a result of the incident and said no discipline was warranted, according to the county’s answer in the case.

Arredondo’s attorney in his lawsuit, U.A. Lewis, said she was deeply concerned by the way law enforcement handled the situation. She alleges law enforcement mischaracterized Arredondo’s conduct in at least one news release and made inaccurate incident reports.

“They wanted to approach this in the worst way possible,” Lewis told KXAN. “This is just mind blowing – how somebody that's supposed to be trained, somebody is supposed to be supervising people and supposed to be decision maker, would come to this final conclusion, that this was OK to do.”

‘Perverted hunch’

Lewis said Arredondo was trying to get his life back on track in 2020, at the time of the car fire arrest. He had been out of prison for less than a year, following a charge of unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

“He paid his debt to society, and when he came home, he became a family man,” Lewis said. “He did his best to be with his family and start his life over and try to do better.”

The whole incident began with police “operating on a perverted hunch,” the lawsuit alleges.

Lewis said police involved in the arrest have tried to deflect from their actions. She pointed to a news release the San Marcos Police Department posted online that says, “SWAT operators were able to pull Arredondo out of the vehicle after a violent struggle. Arredondo sustained burns as he fought to get back into the burning vehicle.”

Arredondo did not try to re-enter the vehicle, and he was not violent with police, Lewis said.

KXAN spoke with Michael Sierra-Arevalo, an assistant professor in the University of Texas at Austin’s Department of Sociology and author of “The Danger Imperative, Violence, Death and the Soul of policing.” Sierra-Arevalo watched footage of the police response. In his book, he describes police culture and training that can lead police to have a preoccupation with threats of violence and personal safety at all times, he said.

Police being hypervigilant can be a “very good thing” when it helps them spot someone hiding a weapon, for example, or preparing to attack, he said. On the other hand, it can lead to police “diagnosing something as violence, or something as a threat, when it is not.”

Watching the video of Arredondo at the moment police are trying to extricate him from the vehicle, there are a couple ways to look at it, he said. At one point, police smash the window out and, for a brief moment, Arredondo’s hands emerge from the smoke, then retreat as police grab at them.

“One interpretation of that video is that Mr. Arredondo fought officers,” he said.

Another interpretation would be that Arredondo was trying to save himself.

“He doesn't punch them, doesn't grab them. He just pulls his hands back, in all likelihood to protect himself from the flames that are currently burning his body, or to try to undo a seat belt, or to try and undo the lock from the inside – any number of things could have been what he was trying to do by pulling his hands back into the vehicle,” Sierra-Arevalo said.

Regarding how the events were interpreted, Sierra-Arevalo said, “It is difficult, under the best of circumstances, for officers to recollect accurately what happens in these types of chaotic situations.”

Once Arredondo emerged from the car, he stood but was quickly forced to the ground and went mostly limp.

Police did say they found THC oil in the car, but that charge was dismissed and he was convicted in October 2023 of unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon, according to court records.

He is currently in prison and scheduled for release in 2027, according to TDCJ records.

Checkered past

Arredondo has been in and out of Texas jails and prisons for nearly 20 years. His convictions include theft of a person in 2007, possession of a controlled substance in 2009 and aggravated kidnapping with a knife in 2009. For the kidnapping conviction, Arredondo was sentenced to five years, his longest sentence, according to TDCJ.

At the time of the car fire arrest in 2020, police were primarily concerned with Arredondo’s criminal and gang background, and the gun in his car, according to video footage of the incident.

“Based on Arredondo's extensive criminal history and illegal possession of a firearm (by a convicted felon), I determined that Arredondo's arrest qualified as a High-Risk Apprehension as provided for by HCSO SWAT Policies and procedures,” said Matt Wasko in an affidavit. Wasko is a Hays County Sheriff’s Office SWAT team commander and was a leader during the Arredondo incident.

It isn’t clear why Arredondo would not wake. Lewis said he did have marijuana in his system at the time. He also has a medical condition that causes him to fall asleep suddenly and deeply, and his nickname is “Sleepy,” Lewis said.

Police records back that up, with Arredondo’s Department of Public Safety record noting his alias as “Sleepy.”

'Threadbare' allegation

Arredondo’s federal case remains pending.

In mid-September, Senior U.S. District Judge David Ezra denied several of Arredondo’s claims on summary judgment, according to an order.

Arredondo claimed the county failed to properly train officers, but the judge ended that claim, according to a court order. The judge also said the law enforcement departments had ample training for officers, including monthly and yearly required training and specific training on the flash-bang and gas canister grenades, known among law enforcement as “noise/flash diversionary devices,” or NFDDs, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Ezra also found the use of the diversionary devices was reasonable, writing in the order: “Arredondo posed a threat to the safety of the officers and those in the general vicinity of his vehicle. Moreover, it is undisputed that Arredondo had a handgun near his hand and was identified as a member of the Mexican Mafia. It is also undisputed that the fire was caused by the malfunctioning of the cannister, not within the officer's control.”

Arredondo's claims of silence and to obstruct justice, and a false evidence claim, will remain in the case, Ezra wrote. In those claims, Arredondo alleges law enforcement concealed information, falsely charged him, wrote inaccurate reports and officers submitted false statements to the Hays County District Attorney's Office.

Hays County filed a motion in late September seeking clarification of the court's order granting and denying parts of their motion on summary judgment, asserting the remaining claims should only proceed against the City of San Marcos.

In his affidavit, Wasko explained his SWAT members are some of the most trained officers in their agency, with high standards for joining the team. They have 20 hours of required training per month that includes preparing for high-risk arrests, barricaded people and hostage rescue.

Hays County SWAT standards require officers using NFDDs to take an 8-hour accreditation course and annual re-certification, the affidavit states.

“Despite this, NFDDs can occasionally cause fires if and when the NFDD comes into contact with a combustible material,” Wasko states in the affidavit. “Because of this, course curriculum and HCSO policies required that a fire extinguisher be nearby when NFDDs are used.”

Footage of the Arredondo incident shows officers did not use an extinguisher to put out the fire as it grew in the car with him inside, although a team member can be heard yelling “fire extinguisher!”

After Arredondo was pulled from the vehicle, a SWAT team member located a fire extinguisher and brought it to another officer’s attention, according to body camera footage.

“Oh, we do have one!” the officer said about the extinguisher. “I was yelling for patrol officers to bring one so we can at least try to save the guy.”