Answers in FWPD leak investigation needed soon

The 10-day suspension of William Martin, the Fort Worth police officer who arrested Jacqueline Craig and her teenage daughters last December, is hardly the kind of justice many people — including Mayor Betsy Price — believe his grossly inappropriate behavior warranted.

For some members of the Fort Worth community, the treatment of Assistant Police Chief Abdul Pridgen and Deputy Chief Vance Keyes, who are under investigation for leaking body camera video and Martin’s personnel records in the arrest’s aftermath, is even worse.

They contend that Pridgen and Keyes are being investigated because they are black.

This is not the Fort Worth Police Department’s first rodeo when it comes to accusations of racial discrimination.

But all of that was expected to change when the city hired Joel Fitzgerald, the first African-American chief to lead the department.

Unfortunately, it hasn’t.

“You could have been a hero” to the black community, Pastor Sharon Mason Ford Turner declared at Tuesday’s City Council meeting.

She and several dozen supporters of Pridgen and Keyes unleashed harsh criticism on the chief; Pastor Michael Bell even called him “an embarrassing mistake.”

That is unfair and unwarranted.

Some have accused Fitzgerald and the city of intentionally withholding the results of the investigation until after the city elections.

That, too, is unfounded. We’ll see what happens this week.

But Fitzgerald faces questions and understandable frustration from some Fort Worth residents when it comes to his management of the Craig arrest and the ensuring police department investigations.

The removal of Pridgen and Keyes from their commands has become a distraction from the incident that sparked the controversy, and from the work the city must do to mend the relationship between police and minority communities.

The chief, who has been Fort Worth’s top cop less than two years, deserves the space to complete the investigation and to thoroughly communicate its findings to the public.

But the public deserves answers so it can move on.

It should get them sooner rather than later.

This story was originally published May 5, 2017 at 8:10 PM with the headline "Answers in FWPD leak investigation needed soon."