A Texas Army veteran who was convicted of murdering a Black man in a racially motivated shooting in 2021 was sentenced last week to 40 years in prison but avoided a life term from the judge, which could set him free after serving half the time.
Christopher Lee Powell, 36, of Killeen, was found guilty in the murder of 37-year-old San Antonio resident Ibrahim Malik Suarez, who was gunned down during an argument at a gas station in Converse, Texas, on April 9, 2021.
District Judge Frank J. Castro handed down the sentence on Feb. 7, requiring Powell to serve at least 20 years for the crime before he becomes eligible for parole.
Prosecutors said Powell killed Suarez in cold blood, after which he called 911 and told the dispatcher a “[N-word] threatened my life.”
“Christopher Powell rolled his window down and shot and killed a man who was walking away,” Bexar County District Attorney Joe D. Gonzales said in a statement to the San Antonio Express-News. “The jury told us that Mr. Suarez died needlessly and provided justice for Ibrahim Suarez and his family.”
Powell, who is white, had been free on bond as the trial played out, but he was led away in handcuffs following the verdict, which the jury returned in just 3½ hours.
During the trial, jurors were shown surveillance footage of the deadly encounter as the two strangers crossed paths inside a Circle K store before a heated confrontation at the gas pumps.
There, the two men argued for a moment before Powell got in his car and rolled down the window to continue the verbal spat, the video showed.
As words were exchanged, Suarez — still standing outside — flipped his middle finger up at Powell as he prepared to drive away.
Suarez then followed Powell’s car out of the parking lot, and the beef continued at a traffic light further down the road, video shows.
Another security camera recorded Suarez as he got out of his car at the intersection along a rural farm road and approached Powell’s window before returning to his vehicle.
At that point, Powell was shown rolling his window down, prompting Suarez to emerge again from his car and walk back toward Powell.
That’s when Powell opened fire three times from the driver’s seat, wounding the unarmed man twice in the chest and once in the ear.
Powell claimed that he fired a warning shot that struck Suarez in the ear but that Suarez kept coming toward him, leading to two more shots that put Suarez on the ground.
Suarez was rushed to Brooke Army Medical Center, where doctors were unable to save him.
Powell’s defense attorney Albert Gutierrez argued that Powell suffered from PTSD following combat in Afghanistan, saying he acted in self-defense because he feared that the taller Suarez would kill him.
But prosecutors rejected that argument, saying Powell lied to investigators a number of times about what happened.
During the trial, Gutierrez introduced toxicology reports showing that Suarez had a blood-alcohol level that was twice the legal limit in Texas, and that he was also under the influence of methamphetamines when he was killed. He also went after Suarez’s character, claiming he was a member of the Latin Skulls gang.
However, jurors were not swayed in light of the 911 call in which Powell calls Suarez the racial slur.
“That’s what he was concerned about that night,” the Powell. “He was scared of the big, Black man,” prosecutor Melissa Rust said.
In his closing argument, prosecutor Jordan Brown noted that Powell did not act in self defense because Suarez never showed intent to “pull Christopher Powell or one of his passengers out of the car. That did not happen.”
For now, Powell has not been charged with a federal hate crime.
