Inside the first database that tracks
America’s criminal cops
COP CRIMES IN AMERICA
More than 80 law
enforcement officers working today in California are convicted criminals, with
rap sheets that include everything from animal cruelty to manslaughter.
According to Killedbypolice.net, at least 808 people have been killed by police so far
this year, outpacing last year’s deaths by 20 victims.... and they ALL GET
AWAY WITH IT!
"Police in the
United States are trained to see the working
class and poor as a hostile enemy. Anything less
than
complete submissiveness is grounds for officers to unleash
deadly force on
their victims. In some instances, even
the most casual encounters with police
have proven to be
deadly."
"In the
overwhelming majority of police killings, of which there are more than one
thousand every year, no officer is ever charged. In the few cases where
charges are brought, most are found not guilty. The Supreme Court has made
it nearly impossible to convict a police officer for murder stating
that an officer is permitted to use deadly force as long as he or she
believes that either they or others are in danger."
COP MURDERS IN
AMERICA -
THOUSANDS SHOT IN THE HEAD.
JUDGES GIVE THE THUG COPS A PASS
TO DO IT AGAIN!
In wake of police shootings, will outside
review of
Fort Worth police restore trust?
Fort Worth police restore trust?
Fort Worth mayor: Shooting
death of Atatiana Jefferson not justified
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FORT WORTH
Not quite a month after a rookie police officer killed Atatiana Jefferson in her home, Fort Worth City Manager
David Cooke announced Friday that the city has tasked an outside panel with
investigating police procedures and forming recommendations to improve how
officers interact with the public.
The panel, which includes
national experts on a variety of policing issues including use of force and
racial profiling, could begin reviewing the Fort Worth Police Department as
soon as Dec. 2, pending approval from the City Council Nov. 19. That review
will include multiple public forums where the panelists are expected to hear
directly from residents about their experiences with police.
“There is a community that
doesn’t feel safe, doesn’t trust the police department,” Cooke said. “It’s our
job to figure out how we rebuild that trust. We want them to tell us what we
should do differently to help build the trust.”
Community activists say it
remains to be seen if the city will take police reform seriously.
Mayor Betsy Price called for
the third-party review of policing in the week after Aaron Dean, a white
officer, shot Jefferson, a 28-year-old black woman, while investigating an open
door call at her home in Morningside in the early morning hours of Oct. 12.
Dean resigned from the department and has been charged with murder. The shooting
sparked unrest across the city as residents protested police brutality with
chants of “We do not feel safe in Fort Worth.”
Fort Worth police have shot
at nine people this year. Jefferson was the seventh person hit and the sixth to
die. Officers fired at two others, but did not hit them.
In a statement, Price called
the panelists Cooke assembled “exactly the action promised to Fort Worth
residents.”
While she voiced support for
Interim Police Chief Ed Kraus and the department, she said she believed working
with an independent group of police experts would improve the department.
“It is my hope that together,
we can continue to propel this positive step forward and continue to drive
change for a better Fort Worth,” she said.
EIGHT
EXPERTS CHOSEN
The panelists are:
▪ Theron L. Bowman, co-chair, former Arlington police chief who
has participated in police practice investigations in Baltimore, Chicago,
Cleveland, Los Angeles and other cities.
▪ Alex del Carmen, co-chair, associate dean of Tarleton State
University’s criminology school and former federal monitor of police
departments under consent decrees. He wrote “Racial Profiling in America.”
▪ Lynda Garcia, policing campaign director
for the Leadership
Conference on Civil and Human Rights and author of “New Era of Public
Safety.” She previously worked at the national ACLU office.
▪ Emily Gunston, deputy legal director at Washington Lawyers’ Committee for
Civil Rights and Urban Affairs and former U.S. Department of Justice Civil
Rights Division deputy chief with experience working with police reform in New
Orleans and Cleveland.
▪ Tom Petrowski, visiting professor at Tarleton
State University and a former FBI Dallas chief legal counsel with
experience in use-of-force training.
▪ Marcia Thompson, a law enforcement and
civil rights attorney who is vice president of consulting firm Hillard Heintze’s law enforcement division.
▪ Jonathan Smith, executive director of the Washington Lawyers’
Committee who was previously the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division
chief during the DOJ’s investigation of the police department in Ferguson,
Missouri, following the death of Michael Brown.
▪ Rita
Watkins, executive director of the Law Enforcement Management Institute of
Texas and certified instructor by the Texas Commission of Law Enforcement Officer
Standards and Education with specialties in cultural diversity issues,
leadership development, interpersonal communication, conflict resolution,
investigative techniques, and diverse workplaces.
The panel was assembled a
little more than a week ahead of a self-imposed deadline of Nov. 19.
Cooke said that was possible
in part because of the amount of interest the city received from policing
experts across Texas and the country. The city received an “overwhelming”
amount of unsolicited inquiries, he said. Bowman and del Carmen were engaged
early in the process, he said, and a list of nationally recognized experts
quickly formed. Rather than pick candidates himself, Cooke said he asked
Bowman, del Carmen and other experts to make recommendations.
In a prepared statement,
Bowman and del Carmen declined to comment.
“If confirmed by the City
Council, the experts anticipate issuing a statement to the media at that time,”
the statement read.
WHAT THE
PANEL WILL DO
The panel’s work is split
into two phases.
First, it will investigate
police practices and patterns related to police stops, searches, arrests and
use-of-force incidents. This will include training, accountability measures,
de-escalation tactics and reporting procedures between 2014 and present. The panel
is expected to provide recommendations for improvements and meet frequently
with members of the community.
A second phase will more
broadly review general police practices and orders related to the department’s
relationship with the public, including training associated with traffic stops
and routine interactions with residents.
A full report with
recommendations is expected at the end of both phases.
Kraus, in a prepared
statement, said he was committed to making positive changes to the department.
“We welcome the review of our
policies and procedures to support that improvement, and look forward to
working with the distinguished, highly respected members of the panel,” he
said.
Manny Ramirez, president of
the Fort Worth Police Officers Association, said the union understood the
reasons for the review and its goals. He said he was hopeful the panel would
find holes in the department’s policy, including some observations the union
has made. He suggested staffing levels are critical, including a need to recruit
more diverse cadets. Comprehensive scenario-based training is needed and
incentives for officers to live in the same communities they patrol should be
explored, he said.
“I think anything that makes
our department better will ultimately make the city safer,” he said.
The process will cost the
city as much as $400,000 and could take nine months to a year, Cooke said.
Money will come from a city fund designed for consulting services. The council
will approve the anticipated budget Nov. 19 along with the panelists. Cooke
said the vote was scheduled then, and not next week, to give both the council
and the public time to review the panelists and make comments.
COMMUNITY
INPUT
It will be some time before
it’s clear whether this panel will restore trust as Cooke and Price hope.
Many, especially those in the
city’s communities of color, have grown troubled with Fort Worth police after a
rash of officer-involved shootings this year, the bulk of which took place this
summer
Unrest hit a high when
JaQuavion Slaton, 20, was shot by multiple officers who surrounded a truck he
was hiding in on June 9. A coroner’s report indicates he was also struck with a
self-inflicted shot from a gun found within the truck, but several experts told
The Star-Telegram the officers’ tactics were questionable.
Pamela Young, a member of the
Tarrant County Coalition for Community Oversight which has made a series of
demands related to reform, suggested Garcia, from the Leadership Conference on
Civil and Human Rights, because of her background working with consent decrees
and enforcing bias-free policing.
“She was the perfect
candidate for this,” Young said. “We’re hoping everyone they pick is objective
and has a mission to see change in the Fort Worth Police Department and not a
mission to uphold the status quo.”
She remained skeptical of the
city, though, because she believed leaders have not been sincere in shaking up
police practices, pointing to two critical reports on the department.
One, known as a the Coleman Report, found no “hard finding of race-based
discrimination” but did conclude hostility existed in the department. The
National League of Cities found black and Hispanic residents were disproportionately more likely to be arrested than
whites.
Cooke said this investigation
would be different than the League of Cities report, which looked broadly at
city practices, because he expected the panelists to be “laser focused” on
policing problems.
Jen Sarduy, a co-founder of Re+Birth Equity Alliance who
has been critical of the city’s response to police shootings, said she had
doubts. The panel does not feel like a community-driven effort for reform, she
said. Panelists will have to take public comments and criticisms seriously for
it to be effective.
“I think my largest fear is that it’ll just be talking heads and
some watered down recommendations that the city can find palatable,” she said.
“What we need is structural, meaningful change.”
For more than a month
residents have spoken at City Council meetings decrying the shooting as an example
of systemic racism in Fort Worth.
Many have said they do not
believe the panel will be independent because it was selected by city
officials. Instead, some speakers echoed calls from a group of Fort Worth pastors suggesting the city enter into a
contract with the U.S. Department of Justice to have federal officials review
the police department.
But such contracts, called
consent decrees, are not as simple as requesting federal oversight. Many are
court-ordered, like the one Chicago went under this year after the Illinois
attorney general sued the city.
Del Carmen previously told the Star-Telegram most police departments do not qualify
for a consent decree because periodic trouble does not rise to the intense
level of scrutiny a consent decree employs. Consent decrees can stretch for
decades and cost millions of dollars.
Cooke said he expected the
panelists to treat their investigation like a consent decree since many of them
have worked for the Department of Justice or participated in federal oversight
of police departments.
Petrowski, for instance, is involved
in the consent decree with the Puerto Rico Police Department, and Bowman was a
federal court-appointed consent decree monitor in Baltimore. Gunston negotiated
with the Cleveland Police Department during a consent decree.
“They know what is involved
when they go into a city whether it’s the DOJ administering the work or us,”
Cooke said.
Fort Worth paid more than $2.2 million in lawsuits against its police in 10 years
The city of Fort Worth has paid more than $2.2 million to settle lawsuits involving the police department since 2009, according to records obtained by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
These numbers involved 14 cases. One settlement was $2 million. Over the past 40 years, the city has paid about $5 million in settlements, among the lowest amounts in the country, according to city officials.
In total, 63 lawsuits have been filed against the department since 2009. Of those, 24 ended during depositions, with all but one being in favor of the city. Two lawsuits were tried in court and one ended in the city paying $65,149.92 to the plaintiff. Another 12 were settled out of court.
None of the officers whose lawsuits were settled was charged with a crime. The newspaper’s analysis also found that one officer — Adrian Tidwell — was named in two excessive force lawsuits that were eventually settled out of court for a total of $70,500. Tidwell is still employed by the department along with Officer Stephanie Phillips, who was involved in a $2 million lawsuit, a spokesman said Thursday.
The newspaper filed an open records request for the number of civil cases and settlements brought against the police department following the fatal shooting of Atatiana Jefferson, 28, in October.
Jefferson was inside her home when a neighbor called a non-emergency number to report that her front doors had been open for several hours. When police arrived, they parked their patrol vehicles out of view and quietly walked around the house without announcing themselves, according to video from their body cameras. When the officers made it to the backyard, Jefferson peered from inside a bedroom where she was with her 8-year-old nephew, according to an arrest warrant affidavit. That’s when ex-officer Aaron Dean fired one shot, killing her.
Dean has been charged with murder and awaits a grand jury hearing. Jefferson’s family has hired Dallas attorney Lee Merritt to represent them civilly. A federal civil rights lawsuit is likely forthcoming. Because of that, the newspaper wanted to see what other lawsuits have been brought against the department and how those were paid.
According to Laetitia Brown, a senior assistant city attorney, Fort Worth is self-insured, meaning that civil rights settlement payouts come out of the city’s general fund.
The city has spent $2,294,799.92 since 2009 to settle lawsuits.
Jay Chapa, the assistant city manager who oversees the police department, said Fort Worth has one of the lowest litigation costs in the country, which he says “is an indication of the level of training we provide our police officers and the quality of our Police Department policies.”
The $2 million settlement represents 40 percent of all the settlements in the past 40 years, Chapa said.
“The 5 million paid over 40 years, although a large figure, is less than many large US cities have paid in the last 2 years,” he said.
According to records obtained by Governing magazine from the country’s largest cities, Fort Worth’s expenses rank at the bottom. The group looked at all settlements paid out by cities, including against departments other than police.
Fort Worth averages about $2.2 million a year in payouts and litigation, according to the data. The same data shows that cities of similar sizes pay much more: Jacksonville, $6.8 million; El Paso, $4.5 million; San Francisco, $59 million; and Seattle, $25 million.
USE OF FORCE, WRONGFUL DEATH LAWSUITS
Michael Jacobs Jr. was a 24-year-old father of two who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. His family called 911 for help in April 2013 when Jacobs became aggressive after he failed to take his medication.
Three officers arrived. One of them, identified in a lawsuit as Stephanie Phillips, shot Jacobs with a stun gun twice. The probes stuck in his neck and chest.
The first jolt of electricity lasted 49 seconds, with the officer holding the trigger for at least 44 seconds, according to the lawsuit. The second lasted five seconds. The lawsuit filed in 2009 alleged Phillips continued to shock Jacobs after he fell face-forward onto the ground.
Jacobs died after being turned over and handcuffed.
Phillips later said that she unknowingly “kept the Taser trigger engaged for an unknown amount of time,” the first time she applied the shock.
Jacob’s death was ruled a homicide, and the city settled a lawsuit filed by his family for the highest amount ever paid in a wrongful lawsuit in Fort Worth: $2 million.
Phillips was cleared of wrongdoing by the police department and a grand jury declined to indict her.
She was working for the department as of last year, according to a records request filed by the Star-Telegram in 2018 for names of officers who work in the city.
In October 2018, the city settled a lawsuit filed 10 years ago by Michael Malone in the amount of $52,500.
Malone and his attorneys alleged Tidwell allowed a police dog to attack Malone after a police chase, even though Malone had stopped his vehicle to surrender.
After the attack, according to the lawsuit, Tidwell and other officers mocked Malone and said they had waited their “whole career to see a dog pull someone out of a pick-up truck window,” and that “the dog was hungry.”
Tidwell was involved in a separate lawsuit that ended in an $18,000 settlement from an incident in 2007.
Alan Keppler was speeding when he noticed a patrol vehicle driven by Tidwell was behind him. When Tidwell turned his lights on, it spooked Keppler and he hit a curb. He brought the car to a stop in front of his home and parked on private property, the lawsuit says.
Keppler placed his hands out of his window and Tidwell grabbed the man, removed him from the vehicle and threw him face-first onto the ground, the lawsuit says. Keppler alleged Tidwell put his knee on his neck and choked him. Keppler suffered a broken arm, spinal fracture, facial abrasions and bruises.
PAYOUT AFTER REMOVAL FROM GAY PRIDE EVENT
Not all of the lawsuits paid out by the city involved excessive force or death.
A discrimination case against former Police Chief Jeffrey Halstead was settled in favor of David Grisham for $65,148.92 in December 2016.
Grisham, described in the lawsuit as an “Evangelical, born-again Christian” and a resident of Fritch in the Texas Panhandle, was a leader of Repent Amarillo.
Grisham and Repent Amarillo have garnered headlines for their tactics, including Grisham’s failed attempt to burn the Quran during the 2010 anniversary of the 9-11 attacks, and he and his group’s videoing and protesting outside of strip clubs, gay bars and sexually oriented businesses.
Grisham went to the Tarrant County Gay Pride Week Association festival, which was being held at a park in downtown Fort Worth, in October 2014 to share his message.
The lawsuit argued that Grisham’s rights — along with the rights of his wife and daughter — were violated when two Fort Worth officers approached them as they handed out Gospel tracts.
The lawsuit said that Sgt. Rachel DeHoyos approached the family and told them to leave under the threat of arrest.
DeHoyos was initially named in the lawsuit but later removed.
OTHER LAWSUITS AGAINST THE DEPARTMENT
Other lawsuits settled against the police department for more than $10,000 show that five were settled in excessive force cases, two in wrongful arrest cases, two in discrimination cases and one in a wrongful death case.
▪ A man received $120,000 after a video recorded at the downtown Fort Worth police station showed an officer slamming the man, who was handcuffed, into the wall of a jail cell before smashing his head onto the floor in 2008.
▪ One man was a victim of a road rage incident when a police officer stopped his car, pulled out a gun and then shot his Taser at him, despite the man complying with the officer’s commands, according to a lawsuit. The charges against the man were dismissed in 2007 and he was awarded $49,900 in a 2012 settlement.
▪ A man and his daughter were awarded $10,000 after they said a Fort Worth officer who was working off-duty as security at Harris Hospital assaulted the 17-year-old girl in 2008. According to the lawsuit, the officer grabbed the girl by her hair and threw her onto the ground and hit her as she tried to go into her grandmother’s hospital room. The lawsuit also says the officer punched the girl’s father in his chest. The officer involved in this case is no longer employed with the department.
▪ In 2011, a civilian employee sued the department for violating her rights under the Family Medical Leave Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act. She was awarded $41,250 in lost wages.
Five other settlements totaled $17,000.
PENDING LAWSUITS
Two lawsuits are pending against the police department, including one from the family of Phillip ‘Flip’ Vallejo, who was fatally shot outside a Mexican restaurant in downtown Fort Worth on July 31, 2015, in front of his wife, Brenda Vallejo.
She filed a suit against the police department, the city and the officer who shot Phillip Vallejo, Mark Ochsendorf, in 2016.
In the suit, Brenda Vallejo says Ochsendorf shot her husband multiple times in the back and again while he lay on the ground, bleeding. She said Ochsendorf and other officers on scene lied about what happened by saying that Phillip Vallejo had a gun and pointed it at Ochsendorf.
In 2015, Fort Worth Sgt. Steve Enright told the Star-Telegram that Phillip Vallejo was waving a handgun and “turned and faced the officer as if to confront him with the weapon.”
Ochsendorf was cleared by a grand jury in Phillip Vallejo’s death and, in a response to the lawsuit, the city denied wrongdoing on Ochsendorf’s or the city’s behalf.
A lawsuit filed against the city in the police shooting death of Jerry Waller is scheduled for a trial in 2020.
Waller died in 2014 after hew was shot multiple times by Officer R.A. Alex Hoeppner as the officer and partner Ben Hanlon searched for a possible suspect after they were dispatched to a burglary alarm call across the street.
Relatives have said Waller, suspecting a prowler was outside, grabbed his gun and went to investigate. Documents indicate that Waller was shot after he refused officers’ demands to drop the gun and pointed it at Hoeppner.
A grand jury declined to indict Hoeppner, who is still at the department.
The Star-Telegram found several other lawsuits against police that are still pending in federal court.
BEHIND OUR REPORTING
Why we did this story
The newspaper filed an open records request for the number of civil cases and settlements brought against the police department following the fatal October shooting of Atatiana Jefferson, 28.
Jefferson was inside her home when a neighbor called a non-emergency number to report that her front doors had been open for several hours. When police arrived, they parked their patrol vehicles out of view and quietly walked around the house without announcing themselves, according to video from their body cameras. When the officers made it to the backyard, Jefferson peered from inside a bedroom where she was with her 8-year-old nephew, according to an arrest warrant affidavit. That’s when ex-officer Aaron Dean fired one shot, killing her.
Dean has been charged with murder and awaits a grand jury hearing. Jefferson’s family has hired Dallas attorney Lee Merritt to represent them civilly. A federal civil rights lawsuit has not yet been filed but is likely forthcoming.
Because of that, the newspaper wanted to see what other lawsuits have been brought against the department, which ones ended in a settlement and how those were paid.
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