Fort Worth leaders contributed to Atatiana Jefferson’s death, sister says in $10M lawsuit
Atatiana Jefferson’s sister filed a wrongful death lawsuit Wednesday against the city of Fort Worth, the former police chief, Mayor Betsy Price and the police officer who shot and killed Jefferson inside her home in October 2019.
Ashley Carr filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas - Fort Worth Divison on Wednesday. She accuses the city, Price and former chief Ed Kraus of causing her sister’s death as well as her mother’s. Yolanda Carr died 90 days after her daughter was killed inside their home.
The suit demands a jury trial and a judgment in excess of $10 million.
The city of Fort Worth, Price and Kraus did not immediately respond to requests to comment. The former officer and his attorney could not be reached for comment.
Jefferson, a 28-year-old Black woman, was fatally shot by now-former police officer Aaron Dean. She was playing video games with her nephew at about 2:30 a.m. when a neighbor, concerned because the front door of the house was open, called a non-emergency line.
About three minutes later, Dean and another officer parked around the corner from the house in the 1200 block of East Allen Avenue, opened a fence into the back yard and moved to a window on the side of the house. Dean shone his flashlight into the window. Jefferson investigated the noise, carrying a gun. As she looked through the window, Dean shot her.
In January 2020, Jefferson’s mother died in the same home where her daughter had been shot three months prior. In a previous interview with the Star-Telegram, Ashley Carr said she has no doubt Yolanda Carr died because of the heartbreak and stress that Jefferson’s death caused.
Dean resigned and was charged with murder two days after he shot Jefferson, and he was indicted by a grand jury in December 2019. COVID-19 halted most court proceedings, and Dean’s trial has not been held. A judge has said the trial likely will be held in August. The judge issued a gag order in the criminal case, prohibiting lawyers and others directly involved in Dean’s trial from speaking publicly about the case.
The suit says the Fort Worth Police Department “displayed a consistent and systematic failure” to train and supervise officers on the proper use of force and de-escalation techniques, resulting in officers unnecessarily using force against people of color. Kraus and Price tolerated this regular use of force and the department actively downplayed and covered up the use of excessive force by its officers, the suit says.
The suit describes 14 specific cases involving police use of force in Fort Worth, including the fatal shooting of Cody Wayne Seals in 2019, the tasing of Dorshay Morris in 2017 and the Jaqueline Craig case in 2016, which gained national attention after a police officer arrested Craig when she reported a neighbor assaulted her 8-year-old son.
The mostly-white makeup of the Fort Worth Police Department, the suit says, is also evidence of systemic racism within the agency.
In July 2020, an expert panel tasked by the city to analyze the police department found its officers do not consistently adhere to policies to avoid force during encounters with the community, and that the policies are not enforced by the department.
Specifically, the panel said it found the de-escalation policy is not uniformly followed and the result of a lack of training on use-of-force policies led to a “para-military” police force.
The Fort Worth Police Department should not have hired Dean, the suit says, based on his history. In 2004, Dean was arrested and pleaded guilty to assault of a woman at the University of Texas. When asked about this during his job interview, Dean told officials that a woman was flirting with him and he responded to see where it would go.
“It escalated a bit,” he said, according to footage released by the police department. “I touched her inappropriately.”
According to Fort Worth’s civil service rules and regulations, the misdemeanor charge would not prevent Dean from being hired as an officer. When asked about Dean’s assault in November 2019, Fort Worth Sgt. Chris Daniels said the charge “was given considerable scrutiny during the hiring process.”
In the same interview, Dean was asked whether he would kill someone if he had to. He replied, “No problem.”
In a May 2018 performance review, Dean’s supervisor said his report writing was good, but he had “tunnel vision” and missed calls for help over the radio. The supervisor said Dean “has poor communication skills” with the public and fellow officers.
In November, several other members of Jefferson’s family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the city of Fort Worth and Dean.
The federal suit was filed by relatives Arita Eschor, Venitta Body and Jerome Eschor in the Northern District of Texas. Jerome Eschor, who lives in Nigeria, has claimed that he is Jefferson’s biological father. Body is the sister of Yolanda Carr — Jefferson’s mother, who died last year.
This story was originally published May 19, 2021 at 6:08 PM with the headline "Fort Worth leaders contributed to Atatiana Jefferson’s death, sister says in $10M lawsuit."
