Texas Appeals Court Overturns Conviction of Police Officer Who Shot Armed Man
A long-running case of a Texas police officer who fatally shot a man who confronted cops while armed with a knife in 2019 has reached another major milestone — and a George Soros-funded DA has to be seething.
On Tuesday, a Texas appeals court overturned the George-Floyd-era conviction of now-former Austin Police Officer Christopher Taylor — actually reversing a jury’s decision and declaring Taylor acquitted in the case, according to KVUE-TV in Austin.
And in wording that was scathing for District Attorney José Garza, the Soros-supported leftist whose office prosecuted the case, the appeals court cited “undisputed objective evidence” in ordering the officer’s acquittal.
The case began July 31, 2019, according to a New York Times report from 2021, when Taylor, then 29, and Officer Karl Krycia responded to a report of a man holding a knife to his own throat.
Taylor and Krycia, with two other officers and a security guard, rode an elevator to the fifth floor of the downtown Austin condo where the man, a 46-year-old biomedical engineering researcher named Mauris DeSilva, was in the hallway, KVUE reported.
When the elevator doors opened, DeSilva — who was in the throes of a mental health crisis — turned toward the officers with his knife in his hand, pointing toward them.
“As he took a step or two toward them, two of the officers fired their guns and one fired a Taser,” KVUE reported.
Taylor and Krycia — the two officers who fired their weapons — were originally charged with first-degree murder and third-degree deadly conduct, according to KTBC-TV in Austin.
The shooting came less than a year after Taylor was involved in another fatal shooting while on duty — that of a suspected drug dealer named Mike Ramos. In that case, according to a New York Times report from June 2024, his criminal trial resulted in a hung jury. After another grand jury declined to indict him again, prosecutors ultimately ended their pursuit of the case.
Taylor and Krycia are white. DeSilva was a native of Sri Lanka who came to the United States after high school, according to KXAN-TV in Austin.
The legal actions took place in the context of a nationwide convulsion over police activity after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020 — and attracted attention far outside Austin.
He should get his job back…
Fired Austin Officer Christopher Taylor defended himself against a knife attack…
he was prosecuted, convicted, fired, and sentenced to 2 years…
court of appeals just threw out the entire joke of a verdict 👇🏽
P.S. DA Jose Garza is a scumbag pic.twitter.com/4bb9JEV03q
— Glendale Arizona FOP Lodge 12 (@GlendaleFOP12) December 31, 2025
Taylor was convicted in October 2024 of deadly conduct after the jury deliberated for three days. He faced up to two years in prison, but was free pending the appeal.
Taylor was the only one who went to trial in the DeSilva shooting. Krycia escaped prosecution on a murder charge with an agreement to conduct training in de-escalation methods, according to a November report by KTBC-TV.
In Tuesday’s ruling, the appeals court cited the circumstances of the shooting in its ruling — particularly the short amount of time the officers had to react to the situation of an armed man behaving in a threatening manner. Body cam footage from the case can be seen in the news coverage below:
(WARNING: The video contains images that might be unsettling for some viewers)
“The body-worn camera footage shows officers confined inside an elevator as the doors open onto a hallway,” Judge Alex Yarbrough wrote for the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, according to KVUE.
“DeSilva is initially facing a mirror with a knife to his own throat. When the doors open, DeSilva turns toward the officers, reorients the knife away from himself and toward them, and advances in their direction. The officers have no meaningful avenue of retreat or ability to create distance. DeSilva, by contrast, has the hallway behind him. He does not retreat.”
DeSilva also made no move to obey the officers’ orders to drop the knife, Yarbrough wrote, according to KVUE. He noted that “the record does not support a finding of attempted compliance,” the station reported.
“At the moment deadly force was used, DeSilva turned toward officers, directed the knife away from himself, ignored commands to drop it, and advanced in a confined space,” Yarbrough wrote.
“A person attempting to comply does not move toward officers with a knife oriented in their direction. The law does not require officers to interpret such conduct as compliance or to wait until an attack is completed before responding.”
The Austin Police Association, the union representing officers in the city, issued a statement praising the ruling and denouncing Garza, a Democrat who first took office in 2021 and whose prosecutions have been criticized before.
“This once again shows that District Attorney Jose Garza manipulated the criminal justice system by repeatedly trying cases against Detective Taylor, until the jury pool was so tainted, that an impartial decision could not be made.
“Thankfully, the 7th Court of Appeals saw through this and did their part by reversing and acquitting Detective Taylor. They showed that Travis County and District Attorney Garza cannot create their own version of justice deviating from and manipulating state law, while also ignoring standard police practices.”
In a statement, Taylor’s trial attorney, Doug O’Connell, also blasted Garza and cited the DA’s treatment of Krycia in the same case.
Both men “responded to the same threat in nearly identical ways, with Officer Krycia discharging his weapon just 0.027 seconds after Taylor,” O’Connell’s statement said.
“Criminal prosecutions are meant to provide clarity on lawful conduct, yet this case lacks any logical consistency—two officers take the same action, yet one is convicted while the other’s charges are dropped.”
🚨BREAKING — Texas Appeals Court OVERTURNS conviction of former Austin PD Officer Christopher Taylor and ACQUITS him outright in the 2019 fatal shooting of knife-wielding Mauris DeSilva.
Taylor was prosecuted by FAR-LEFT Soros-backed DA.
The high court ruled the shooting was… pic.twitter.com/3cg0uLHhHM
— Election Wizard (@ElectionWiz) January 1, 2026
Garza’s office — which has to be used to the glare of bad publicity by now — issued a statement indicating it plans to appeal the appellate court decision, according to KTBC.
“The conservative Amarillo-based 7th Court of Appeals judges think they know better than the Travis County jurors who heard the case and convicted Taylor,” the statement said, according to the Austin American-Statesman.
“The basis for the reversal—that no reasonable juror could have convicted—is absurd. We will continue fighting to uphold the jury’s conviction.”
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