Ex-Arlington officer who fired at dog indicted in 2019 shooting death of homeless woman
A Tarrant County grand jury returned an indictment Wednesday against a former Arlington police officer accused in the shooting death of a homeless woman in August 2019.
Jurors reached their decision to indict ex-Arlington officer Ravinder Singh on a charge of criminally negligent homicide.
Singh fired his gun toward a dog, but one of his shots killed 30-year-old Margarita Brooks while she lay on some nearby grass, authorities have said. Singh was responding to a call to check on Brooks’ welfare after police received a report that a woman was passed out near the woods behind a shopping center.
“Officers responding to welfare checks should not be so quick to use their deadly weapons in situations that do not call for use of force,” the Brooks family said in a statement. “Our hope is not only that this officer is held responsible for Maggie’s death, but that the Arlington Police Department is also held accountable for its lack of training and procedures in responding to welfare checks.”
Singh and his attorney could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
Under Texas state law, “a person is criminally negligent with respect to the result of his or her conduct when he or she ought to be aware of a substantial and unjustifiable risk that a particular result will occur,” according to a news release from the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office.
Singh is the second Arlington officer to be charged with criminally negligent homicide since 2018.
Arlington police on Wednesday declined to comment on the indictment, and deferred all questions about the charge to the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office.
If convicted on the charge, Singh, who resigned a few months after the 2019 shooting, faces a maximum of two years in jail and a $10,000 fine.
Troy Brooks, who is the father of Margarita “Maggie” Books and an Arlington Fire Department captain, told the Star-Telegram that while the indictment brings his family a sense of justice, he was hoping Singh would be indicted on manslaughter, which is a second-degree felony, punishable by two to 20 years in prison and up to a $10,000 fine.
Troy Brooks said as a firefighter in Arlington, his relationship with officers is more cautious since the death of his daughter. In his personal life, he’s now raising two of his daughter’s kids and has had to push back his retirement so he can keep providing for his family.
“I don’t have time to feel sorry for anything,” he said. “I had to keep moving.”
Going forward, Brooks not only wants accountability in the Arlington Police Department, but across the country. He wants money to be poured into other services to help the community instead of inflating police budgets.
Brooks said the police work for the community, but his experience coupled with hundreds of other incidents across the country make him believe that isn’t true.
“It’s not a blue life. It’s a blue shirt. And we paid for it as taxpayers,” he said. “You should work for us. We should define your job, not you.”
Acquaintances of Margarita Brooks said she was known as Maggie and was a regular in the area of the Seville Commons shopping center, near where she was shot and killed on Aug. 1, 2019.
The Arlington Police Department has said the rookie officer fired at Brooks’ dog, which was charging toward him, when a bullet struck Brooks as she lay in the grass.
Body camera video showed Singh had spotted Brooks in the distance and yelled questions when the dog began to bark and run in Singh’s direction. The officer retreated and fired multiple times toward the dog.
Brooks screamed, saying, “Oh my God, the police shot me.”
Singh had graduated from the police academy in February 2019 and completed field training July 1, a month before the shooting, police have said.
In a separate case, Arlington officer Bau Tran is accused of shooting and killing O’Shae Terry in September 2018 after Terry tried to take off from a traffic stop in Arlington. Tran’s trial is pending.
Tran was fired from the department in May 2019.
This story was originally published September 16, 2020 at 12:58 PM.
