The three officers facing charges in Dallas County are accused of inflicting serious injuries on demonstrators who were backing away and didn’t pose a threat, court records say. One man lost an eye and seven teeth. Another’s cheekbone was smashed.

Mabry, 36, was indicted on eight felony charges — six counts of aggravated assault by a public servant and two counts of deadly conduct. He also faces three misdemeanor counts of official oppression.

Williams, 41, was indicted on six felony charges — four counts of aggravated assault by a public servant and two counts of deadly conduct. He also faces four misdemeanor counts of official oppression, one of which was from an incident unrelated to the protests.

Privitt, 57, was indicted on one count of aggravated assault by a public servant.

Here’s how their indictments came about.

Caught on camera

Five days into 2022, Creuzot held a news conference about the protests and pleaded for the public’s help in gathering more evidence.

Prosecutors had presented two cases involving officers to a grand jury in November, including a case against Williams, but grand jurors didn’t indict them. Grand jurors’ deliberations are secret, so how they reached their decision is not public.

The public responded to Creuzot’s request, providing more video footage to show the grand jury. It is unclear what new evidence prosecutors might have had when they presented Williams’ case a second time.

The two Dallas officers indicted were filmed inflicting injuries on demonstrators, according to court records. Fewer court records exist for the Garland officer, so little is known about the charges against him. Privitt’s lawyer, Cody Skipper, said he is accused of shooting a beanbag round at — but missing — a protester.

Williams and Mabry can be heard bragging in the videos when they hit someone, laughing and celebrating their shots, court records show.

Such behavior would violate police department rules for professional conduct and could call into question the reasonableness of the force, said Alex del Carmen, an associate dean of the school of criminology at Tarleton State University and a national expert on law enforcement practices.

The choice to use force should “be a very difficult decision that would need to be made by a reasonable police officer,” he said.

“Even if the use of force would have been reasonable, which is the standard that we use in the law, the celebration component shows lack of training, lack of professionalism, and clearly is in violation of various policies that the police department would have in place related to the professional behavior of a police officer,” del Carmen said.

Photographer Vincent Doyle lost 60% of vision in his left eye and suffered a smashed cheekbone after investigators say Williams fired a 40 mm launcher that hit his face, according to court records.

Brandon Saenz lost an eye and seven teeth, and the left side of his face was fractured as a result of Mabry firing a 40 mm launcher, according to court records.

Saenz and Doyle were hit with rubber bullets. Rubber bullets are not used in some law enforcement agencies across the U.S. — and most departments would prohibit officers from aiming them at a person’s face, del Carmen added.

Three other men were hit by Williams or Mabry, according to court records. They are either unnamed or unidentified.

In December, the office obtained an arrest warrant for Williams on one misdemeanor count of assault the day after The Dallas Morning News published a story that said no Dallas police officers had faced any criminal charges stemming from the 2020 protests.

Williams’ lawyer, Robert Rogers, accused Creuzot at the time of arresting the officer for “political gain” as he faced an opponent in the Democratic primary.

On Feb. 9, the DA’s office obtained arrest warrants for Williams and Mabry based on the investigation so far. The officers fired so-called less-lethal ammunition and struck people who were backing away from officers and didn’t pose any danger to police or others, DA’s office investigators wrote in the affidavits.

Dallas Police Association President Mike Mata accused Creuzot of throwing a “political football” days before early voting started when he obtained felony arrest warrants for Williams and Mabry in March.

Creuzot, who won the primary and faces the former district attorney, Republican Faith Johnson, in November, declined interview requests and instead responded with emailed comments.

He said his staff worked “tirelessly to collect evidence” before presenting the cases to a magistrate judge for arrest warrants and the grand jury for indictments.

“Unfortunately, for these cases, the statute of limitations falls in an election year, so regardless of what this office does or does not do, our actions may be viewed as politically motivated by some,” Creuzot wrote.

Creuzot has been criticized by both sides. Civil rights activists have said he hasn’t been bold enough. Police and the officers’ union have said he is conducting a political witch hunt.

“At the foundation of the criticism of these indictments, appears to be a failure to appreciate the uniquely American process that is the Grand Jury,” Creuzot wrote. “I’ve said it time and time again, the Grand Jury’s role is to stand between the government and the people.”

Creuzot noted that the police department — not his own investigators — sent the cases for prosecutors to present to a grand jury.

Trust chipped away

Historically, the U.S. has seen few prosecutions of police officers using force on the job. District attorneys have been reluctant to seek indictments and grand juries — what little we know of the behind-closed-doors process — seem deferential to police, said Sandra Guerra Thompson, a professor at the University of Houston Law Center and former New York County prosecutor.

The News has identified only a handful of Dallas officers who have been convicted of crimes over the past decade for using excessive or improper force while on duty, according to a review of court records.

In November, a grand jury declined to indict Sgt. Roger Rudloff, despite what experts said was abundant evidence he assaulted a Latina protester when he blasted her in the breast with pepper balls.

Public perception seems to change when use-of-force interactions are recorded and widespread, experts said. The historical deference people paid to police officers began to chip away with the taped beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police in 1991, Guerra Thompson said.

Each in-custody death caught on camera — Philando Castile in Minnesota and Alton Sterling in Louisiana to name a few — affects the way the public views the role of police, she said. The reaction to Floyd’s murder was the culmination of a series of cases around the country where there was video footage, she said.

“I think the community expects to see charges in some of these cases,” Guerra Thompson said, speaking generally about video recordings of police officers.

DA credibility

The relationship between prosecutors and police has always been complicated, Guerra Thompson said. Though they work in tandem, prosecutors also must treat officers the way they would anyone accused of a crime. But the relationship is evolving as prosecutors become more willing to prosecute police in use-of-force cases, Guerra Thompson said.

“At the end of the day, prosecutors are elected officials,” she said. “They have to get elected by their communities and if the community is expressing outrage and wanting more accountability in some of these cases, then it stands to reason that prosecutors are going to be responsive to that.”

It would be egregious for politically aspiring DAs to make innocent officers sacrificial lambs, del Carmen said. DAs should be guided by the evidence because they realize their relationships with the community and the police are at stake, he added.

“DAs have a lot to lose if the prosecution is not successful,” del Carmen said. “If at the end of the criminal justice system process, they ended up being acquitted … it essentially means the DA is going to lose some credibility and has damage with the local law enforcement entity.”