Lyft driver who shot "protester" in Austin-Case is starting to feel like Duke Lacrosse.

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AUSTIN (KXAN) — A homicide investigator with the Austin Police Department has accused the Travis County District Attorney of forcing him to alter his testimony to a grand jury in the case against a man accused of shooting and killing an Austin protester.

In a sworn affidavit, Detective David Fugitt wrote, “I firmly believe the District Attorney’s Office, acting under the authority of José P. Garza, tampered with me as a witness.” However, a district judge reviewing these claims said he didn’t see any behavior in this case rising to the level of criminal conduct by the D.A.

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In the sworn affidavit, Fugitt claims he had “several conversations” with the District Attorney’s Office regarding evidence that could have been favorable to Perry but “it became clear to me that the District Attorney’s Office did not want to present” this evidence. Fugitt said he was ordered to remove more than 100 slides from his presentation and felt like he “did not have any other options but to comply with their orders.”

For example, he wrote, “The District Attorney’s Office also made me remove an animation from Daniel’s Perry’s driving the night of the incident coordinated with his cell phone records that would have refuted the deadly conduct charge ultimately returned by the grand jury.” Fugitt ultimately said he believed the D.A.’s conduct went from being “highly unethical behavior to criminal behavior.”

In a hearing on Wednesday in the 147th District Court, Judge Clifford Brown responded, “I’m just not prepared to jump with you across the chasm that they committed some kind of criminal conduct.”

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