The videos were released after the criminal charges filed against Michael, Anthony, and Carlos Barrientes Vela were resolved in court earlier this year.
A medical call turns volatile
San Antonio Police Department officers were dispatched around 9:30 p.m. on April 29, 2024, to an auto dealership at 1252 Bandera Road after paramedics responding to a medical emergency requested assistance.
As paramedics treated a woman in an apartment at the back of the dealership, which Michelle Barrientes Vela’s husband operates, “bystanders that were there started to get violent,” an SAPD incident report shows.
Michelle Barrientes Vela pushed back on that narrative and denied that anyone at the apartment was violent toward paramedics. Body camera footage shows SAPD officers respond to the car lot with their lights and sirens on before getting out of their vehicles and sprinting inside the living unit.
Michelle Barrientes Vela is seen on camera attempting to calm down her son Michael Barrientes Vela, 24, whose girlfriend was being treated by paramedics a few feet away.
“You have no warrant. You have no probable cause,” said Michelle Barrientes Vela. “There’s no crime occurring. But yet here you are entering private property.”
While the woman in medical distress was wheeled out of the living unit on a stretcher crying, Michael Barrientes Vela consoled her and said he was going with her to the hospital. An officer agreed that Michael Barrientes Vela was going to go with the woman.
Moments later, however, tensions escalated after a paramedic told Michael Barrientes Vela he could not ride in the ambulance. The paramedic then asked Michael if he and the woman “took anything,” referring to “opiates.”
Anthony Barrientes Vela then stepped between officers. His brother, Michael, then told officers, “Do not touch me.” The footage shows Michael moving toward the ambulance as two officers tackle him to the ground.
Carlos, who held a terrier-mix dog, and Anthony were also taken to the ground. The brothers and officers screamed expletives at one another, the footage shows.
An officer then shot Michael Barrientes Vela with a stun gun as he lay on the ground. As Anthony continued to argue with an officer, his father told Anthony he was making things worse.
Three officers were injured during the melee, including SAPD officer Andrew Davis. Davis’ shoulder was dislocated, the footage shows.
SAPD Officer Andrew Davis suffered a dislocated shoulder during the melee.
(KSAT)
Both Michelle Barrientes Vela and her husband are shown in the body camera footage instructing their sons to cool off. “I think that, yeah, if I hadn’t been there, I’d be burying my sons. There’s no doubt about it. And I’m trying as a mother because sure I’m a police officer, but I’m a mother. I was there as a mother that night with my sons,” said Michelle Barrientes Vela. “What I saw in front of me was movements of struggle to just survive, just survive. They crossed the line with my sons. That was an emotion, and they abused their authority with my boys.”
“And then boom, drops him. He is not a threat. There is no way he can come to the officer. He is handcuffed,” said Michelle Barrientes Vela. “It’ll always be there. Everything that transpired that night will never be erased from my mind, and it sure in hell is never going to be erased from my sons’ minds.”
SAPD officials this week confirmed Hathaway left employment with the agency in May 2025. He is one of several officers named in a federal civil rights lawsuit filed by the brothers against SAPD and the San Antonio Fire Department last September.
Then-SAPD Officer Henry Hathaway lifts up Michael Barrientes Vela while the suspect is handcuffed. Barrientes Vela’s family says he suffered a broken hand after being dropped by the officer.
(KSAT)
Brothers avoid felony assault conviction
All three brothers were charged with felony assault on a peace officer, resisting arrest, and interference with public duties. SAPD also charged Anthony Barrientes Vela with unlawful carry of a weapon after a small handgun was found in his pocket. Records show that charge, however, was rejected by a magistrate judge hours later.
The brothers appeared in court last year as part of an unsuccessful effort to have Bexar County District Attorney Joe Gonzales’ office removed from prosecuting their cases. Attorneys for the trio argued that past comments made by Gonzales about Michelle Barrientes Vela were a violation of due process.
In late April, two years to the day since the brothers were arrested, Michael Barrientes Vela was convicted by a jury of resisting arrest but not for the more serious charge of assaulting a peace officer. He was given 180 days in jail, which was suspended for a year, court records show.
A week later, in early May, Anthony and Carlos Barrientes Vela pleaded no contest to resisting arrest and were given deferred adjudication and six months of probation each. The duo was also not convicted of felony assault of a peace officer.
Michelle Barrientes Vela served as Bexar County Precinct 2 Constable from January 2017 to October 2019. She left office weeks after publicly announcing plans to run for Bexar County sheriff. The announcement triggered the state’s “resign-to-run” law, which prevents certain elected officials from staying in office if they have publicly announced plans to seek a higher office.
Michelle Barrientes Vela was convicted in 2022 of felony tampering with records after investigators said she mishandled security fees collected at a West Side park and created handwritten cash logs related to the collection of those fees in an effort to impact the criminal investigation.
The convictions were reversed by an appeals court in 2024, and the ex-Precinct 2 constable was formally acquitted of all charges early last year after the state’s highest criminal appeals court declined to review the case.
Michelle Barrientes Vela then ran for the Texas House of Representatives District 125, but she lost in the Democratic runoff in May.
