Three hero Austin cops who put their lives on the line to stop a maniac’s deadly shooting rampage are expected to face a grand-jury investigation thanks to a George Floyd-era policy.
Texas lawyer Doug O’Connell, whose firm O’Connell West has been tapped to represent the officers at the behest of the Austin Police Association, told The Post on Tuesday that such mandatory reviews are the brainchild of Austin District Attorney José Garza.
“The district attorney, at the direction of the Wren Collective, insists on presenting every officer involved shooting to a grand jury,’’ O’Connell said, referencing a shadowy and influential left-wing Austin-based criminal-justice reform group.
“We believe that our clients will face this same process,” the lawyer said.
Garza instituted the requirement when he took office in 2021 — just a few months after Floyd’s killing at the hands of a Minnesota cop roiled the nation and sparked drastic changes in scores of police departments across the US.
O’Connell criticized the procedure as lacking transparency.
“Grand juries in Texas are secret, meaning only the prosecutors are in the room. The prosecutors control what evidence the grand jury sees, and they have no obligation to present exculpatory evidence,’’ he said.
“We know from other police prosecutions, this one-sided presentation is how the Travis County DA has obtained indictments in the past.
“Every time an officer has to confront a violent criminal they may be indicted if the DA doesn’t like their actions,’’ the lawyer said.
The cops bravely shot dead pro-Iran Senegalese immigrant Ndiaga Diagne as he sprayed bullets at a popular college bar, killing three people and wounding 13 more.
The officers have not had charges lodged against them, at least yet, despite a viral tweet claiming otherwise Tuesday.
“The DA has taken to bringing any officer involved in a shooting case before a grand jury to determine if charges are warranted,” Austin Police Association’s Detective Christopher Irwin told The Post on Tuesday.
“As it stands right now, there are no pending charges against any officers.”
Asked for the identities of the cops involved, O’Connell declined to provide them.
“Until we know more about the gunman and his ties, if any, to terrorism, I’m not going to put those officers in any further jeopardy,’’ he told The Post.