Police answer questions from Ryan Place group about girl’s kidnapping, officers’ response
The Fort Worth Police Department responded Tuesday to a series of questions from a neighborhood group that raised concerns about police response to the abduction of an 8-year-old girl in May.
The Ryan Place Task Force, which was appointed by the Ryan Place Improvement Association, sent out questions in a letter Monday night.
Cade Lovelace posed the questions to the Fort Worth City Council on Tuesday. Though the police department had addressed most of the task force’s concerns in a statement, Lovelace emphasized the need for a citizens’ police oversight board, calling it an outlet for concerned residents to air their grievances.
The group formed after the kidnapping of the girl in Ryan Place neighborhood. While the girl was found and the accused kidnapper was arrested, residents said they were unhappy with a faulty Amber Alert and information going out on social media hours before police released it.
The Task Force asked the following questions in the letter:
- What FWPD policies have changed to address the known failures of the FWPD’s Amber Alert process?
- How has FWPD modified its social media policy so that officers on the scene are able to disseminate information during an emergency more effectively?
- What barriers prevent FWPD from quickly alerting and engaging with neighborhood leaders during emergencies?
- What resources are unavailable to FWPD and/or what practices are not able to be implemented or modified due to budget constraints?
- Why has the Citizen Review Board not been created?
Several of these questions were raised in stories by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram shortly after the kidnapping. The task force letter cited several Star-Telegram stories.
Fort Worth police answered the questions in a media release Tuesday afternoon. Lovelace said he appreciated the time and effort city officials have put into working with the task force, but he wanted more direct communication.
“We deserve a self-governing process, not one where citizens’ questions are responded to via a press release,” he said.
Police said the Amber Alert process was immediately reviewed and changed after the kidnapping. In addition to sending a fax notification to local radio stations, police will also send an email and call radio stations to confirm the alert was received. That notification activates the regional broadcast Emergency Alert System.
Also, all Major Case detectives and supervisors now have the ability to send out Amber Alert information, which was previously only done by Missing Persons detectives.
The decision about whether to issue a full statewide Amber Alert, including messages sent to cell phones and road signs, is determined at the state level and usually requires detailed information such as the license plate of the abductor’s vehicle. Fort Worth police said they notified state officials in a timely manner but had limited information at the start of the investigation. Following state guidelines, that alert would have gone out at 6 a.m. the morning after the kidnapping if the girl had not been found.
In response to the question about information going out on social media, police said public information officers at a scene will be notified immediately when there is a confirmed abduction. However, they emphasized the need to make sure information is accurate before it is sent out to the public.
Due to concerns about information not being released to those directly involved in a criminal incident, Fort Worth police will now designate someone to address those people specifically.
“Another barrier is the ease at which information can be forwarded on social media through a ‘friends’ network,” police said in the release. “Information provided outside the official FWPD channel, which is often inaccurate, false, or misleading, can quickly lead to an unnecessary expansion of the search or the investigation, again limiting resources that can be utilized in a more effective way. We will continuously push information out to the public via Facebook and Twitter.”
Police are also updating their response team in partnership with the FBI. An alert will now be sent out to all members of the Fort Worth Police Department Missing and Abducted Child Response Team when an abduction happens.
Budget constraints do impact police equipment abilities, the release said.
“We currently have an aging fleet of Mobile Command Posts that are in need of replacement and this is in process. While this was an obstacle, it did not prevent FWPD from completing the mission at hand,” police said in the release.
Lastly, police addressed concerns that a Citizen Review Board has still not been formally created. The Task Force on Race and Culture recommended the creation of this board to independently review internal investigations in the police department.
The city is finalizing plans to hire an independent police monitor as part of the 2020 budget. Once that person is hired they will guide the council and city staff in forming a review board.
Lovelace told the council Tuesday the oversight board would be a tool residents could use when they’re dissatisfied with police service.
“If this board existed we would use it today to answer our questions and resolve these issues,” he said.
Councilwoman Ann Zadeh said she received Ryan Place Task Force’s questions last week. She forwarded them to all the city council members and helped the task force members get in touch with city staff.
Zadeh said the task force has been working with the city since June to find solutions to their concerns, but the group wanted to bring those concerns to the attention of the entire council.
“I don’t see a problem with citizens questioning the city policy or police procedures when they don’t think things are working. It’s our job to find answers,” she said.
Zadeh said she believes the police department has been working to make changes and address the concerns of the Ryan Place Task Force. She said she is hopeful the police will “fix all the problems, not just some of them.”
She said May’s kidnapping had the positive impact of creating increased interest in neighborhood associations and engagement in ideas such as citizen patrols.
This story was originally published August 27, 2019 at 1:36 PM.
