Is Fort Worth Police Department doing enough to prevent officer DWIs?

Posted Thursday, Jan. 03, 2013 0 comments  Print Reprints
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By Bud Kennedy

bud@star-telegram.com

kennedy Fort Worth has a problem.

Or police in general have a problem.

In the last four years, 14 Fort Worth officers have been arrested in drunken driving cases, including one convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison after a crash that killed a 27-year-old woman.

But our police are not the only ones who drink and drive.

The last time The Dallas Morning News tallied up similar numbers, 27 officers in six years had been fired or quit over DWI or other alcohol-related charges.

"It's a problem," said Jim Lane, the former Fort Worth mayor pro tem who defends many officers in his role as attorney for several police associations.

"But it's no bigger here than anywhere else the size of Fort Worth."

One Fort Worth officer convicted of DWI is too many. That's particularly true since officers working traffic or wrecks have been among the victims of swerving or speeding drunken drivers.

And it's particularly embarrassing that the two most recent arrests involved officers who know the danger well -- one as Police Chief Jeff Halstead's second-in-command and the other as a DWI patrol officer out the night after New Year's Eve.

The question is whether the Fort Worth Police Department does an awful job preventing DWIs, or a good job of disclosing them.

"Lots of officers in towns around here get arrested, and you don't hear much about it," Lane said.

"Chief Halstead is being more forthright with the community."

Statewide numbers bear out that argument.

Based again on the News' 2012 study, about 70 Texas officers each year are arrested in connection with a DWI case. So it isn't irregular for three or four to come from Fort Worth or Dallas.

On the other hand, the Tarrant County Sheriff's Department had only two such arrests last year and three in the last 20 months from its entire staff of 1,451 deputies, jailers and workers, according to a spokesman.

Maybe they see too many police in jail.

Bud Kennedy's column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. 817-390-7538

Twitter: @budkennedy

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