SAN ANTONIO – WARNING: THE VIDEO ABOVE SHOWS FOOTAGE OF A PERSON BEING SHOT AT CLOSE RANGE AND MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR ALL AUDIENCES.
Newly released surveillance video shows the October 2023 shooting of a woman by a Northside Independent School District police officer outside of a crowded high school football stadium.
The footage, released by the San Antonio Police Department earlier this year, captures the moments leading up to the shooting of Markay Garcia, the wife of a Sotomayor High School assistant football coach, just outside Dub Farris Athletic Complex as thousands of spectators arrived for a varsity football game.
Garcia survived the shooting, but she suffered a shattered humerus bone, a destroyed triceps muscle and has permanent nerve damage, according to a 2024 federal lawsuit she filed against the district and two of its officers.
The video has drawn sharp criticism from a nationally recognized policing scholar, who told KSAT Investigates the officers’ actions unraveled almost immediately.
“None of it makes sense. It’s bad, essentially from the very beginning,” said Michael Sierra-Arévalo, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin. Sierra-Arévalo has spent more than a decade studying police culture and use of force.
The officer who shot Garcia, Kyle Kennedy, was later indicted by a grand jury and surrendered his peace officer’s license earlier this year as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors.
‘She almost ran us over’
The surveillance footage shows Northside ISD officers Joseph Garcia and Kyle Kennedy positioned near a crosswalk outside the stadium entrance shortly before the shooting.
As Markay Garcia’s light-colored SUV approached, Kennedy stepped in front of the vehicle while Officer Garcia walked to the passenger side before moving to the driver’s side.
Within 20 seconds, the encounter escalated dramatically.
The video shows Officer Garcia attempting to open the driver’s door before the SUV lurched forward. Kennedy then reached into the vehicle and fires a single shot, striking Markay Garcia in the upper arm.
The footage shows Markay Garcia exiting the SUV with her right arm severely injured before she collapsed on the pavement as spectators scatter and run for cover.
Other officers respond moments later, followed by Garcia’s husband, who rushed to the scene from inside the stadium.
After reviewing the surveillance footage, Sierra-Arévalo told KSAT he believes the officers made a series of tactical mistakes that unnecessarily increased the danger for everyone nearby.
“The fact that we are at a public football game with families walking around and an officer chooses to draw a firearm, by extension, is immediately increasing the risk of individuals in the vicinity,” said Sierra-Arévalo.
Among the most significant errors, according to Sierra-Arévalo, was Officer Garcia’s attempt to open the door of a vehicle that was not secured in park while Kennedy simultaneously positioned himself directly in front of the SUV.
“It is generally poor tactics to place a human body in front of a vehicle — particularly if you have a reason to believe that that vehicle is going to try to flee,” said Sierra-Arévalo.
The professor said those early decisions left officers with few safe options once the SUV began moving.
“There were decisions that were made that remove the ability for officers to engage in that interaction in a safe way and frankly doomed them to make a series of mistakes, one after another, that wound up with an innocent woman being shot,” Sierra-Arévalo said.
Officer Joseph Garcia’s body camera did not record the shooting, but it captured his immediate account to other officers and even eyewitnesses.
Officer Garcia said the SUV had been “hauling a--” through the parking lot before officers attempted to stop it.
“She starts honking at people. And, as soon as a handicap is turning through here, she’s hauling a--. She starts speeding up again,” Officer Garcia told another officer as his body camera recorded. “So, we tell her to stop. Kyle (Kennedy) steps in front of the vehicle, and I go around and I tell her, ‘Ma’am, step out of the vehicle.’ I try to open the door, and she tries to take off. And that’s when Kyle fired a shot at her.”
Surveillance footage disputes claim that Markay Garcia was speeding through parking lot
However, additional surveillance video obtained by KSAT Investigates disputes Officer Garcia’s claim that Markay Garcia was hauling through the parking lot.
Multiple camera angles showed her SUV’s entire path of travel behind a black van after entering the athletic complex’s lot.
The footage does not show the vehicle speeding through the lot before the encounter with officers.
In November 2024, a Bexar County grand jury indicted Kennedy on charges of aggravated assault by a public servant, deadly conduct-discharge firearm and official oppression.
In December 2025, he pleaded guilty to the aggravated assault charge. Prosecutors agreed to dismiss the deadly conduct and official oppression charges as part of the plea agreement, records show.
In January 2026, Kennedy received six years of deferred adjudication and surrendered his Texas peace officer license.
The agreement allowed Kennedy to avoid jail time in the case.
Kennedy, who had been on administrative desk duty after the shooting, resigned from the Northside ISD Police Department on the day of his sentencing.
Through his criminal attorney, Kennedy refused a request to be interviewed for this story.
TCOLE records show Kennedy worked as an NISD officer from June 2019 to June 2022, before briefly working for the Live Oak Police Department.
Kennedy’s tenure with Live Oak PD, which lasted less than five months, included multiple performance evaluations that raised concerns about his police tactics, personnel records obtained by KSAT Investigates show.
A July 2022 evaluation stated that Kennedy struggled when interviewing people he came into contact with.
The assessment stated Kennedy needed to slow down when speaking with people and allow them time to answer questions.
“PPO Kennedy often gets ahead of himself while speaking and does not obtain necessary information,” the evaluation states.
A separate September 2022 evaluation of Kennedy referred to him as “rusty” when it came to the penal code and traffic offense knowledge.
The following month, in October 2022, Kennedy was ordered to go through remedial training to improve how he handled himself on calls, records show.
The letter noted several specific incidents, including an October 2022 call in which “Kennedy’s head was down most of the time” making him unaware of his surroundings during a traffic stop.
Weeks later, during a stop for a defective tail lamp, Kennedy and the driver took turns entering the driver’s vehicle and using the brake pedal to test the light, records show.
The action caused Kennedy’s back to be turned to the driver repeatedly, which ran afoul of the department’s tactics for a traffic stop, according to records.
Kennedy resigned from LOPD the following month, stating “I have some things to take care of” and that it was in his best interest to leave the department.
He was then rehired by NISD PD two months later, Texas Commission on Law Enforcement records show.
Officer Garcia, meanwhile, remains an NISD police officer, according to TCOLE records.
An NISD spokesman declined to comment on the shooting video, citing the ongoing litigation.
An attorney for Markay Garcia declined to make her available for an interview and said no trial date for the lawsuit has been set.
SAPD, the lead law enforcement agency on the case, was delayed in releasing the footage due to a significant backlog of video requests filed with the city.
Read more reporting on the KSAT Investigates page.