Petition to fire Keller police who pepper-sprayed handcuffed man reaches 18,700 signatures
A petition to fire the two Keller police officers who handcuffed and pepper-sprayed a man who was filming the detention of his son has more than 18,700 signatures as of Monday.
On Aug. 15, two officers with the Keller Police Department pepper-sprayed Marco Puente directly in the eyes while they pinned him to the ground and handcuffed him. The entire incident was video recorded on multiple dash-cam and body-worn cameras. The Keller police chief apologized for his officers’ behavior two days later and said they were in the wrong, according to a federal lawsuit Puente and his attorneys filed against the officers in Fort Worth District Court on Dec. 15.
Marco Puente, an emergency electrician from Keller, sat in the back of a police car for nearly 20 minutes begging for someone to wipe the pepper spray from his eyes.
On Aug. 15, Marco Puente and his son, Dillon Puente, were driving separately to Marco Puente’s wife’s grandfather’s house to fix Dillon Puente’s air conditioning in his car. As Dillon Puente approached the home in the Riverdance neighborhood, then-Sgt. Blake Shimanek pulled him over on a street inside the subdivision for making a wide right turn. Dash-cam and body-cam footage provided to the Star-Telegram show how the alleged traffic violation escalated to Marco Puente’s arrest.
In the video, Shimanek walks up to Dillon Puente’s car window, which is about three-fourths of the way rolled up, and tells him to roll it the rest of the way down. He asks Dillon Puente to step out and put his hands on the car, which he does. He starts handcuffing the 22-year-old, and asks him, “Why are you asking so suspicious?”
Spencer Muskopf, the 22-year-old man who started the petition on change.org last week, said he wants to see Shimanek and Officer Antik Tomer fired and investigated for potential criminal charges.
“These officers lost the trust of the people’s trust to do what’s best for the community,” Muskopf said. “I’m not anti-police. I just know that police are crucial and vital and there are a lot of good cops out there, but when I see something like this I have to speak out.”
Keller city officials did not respond to multiple requests for comment Monday. Keller police previously have said they cannot comment on pending litigation, but the police department confirmed that Shimanek was demoted from sergeant to officer because of his arrest of Marco Puente.
Muskopf, who was raised in Keller and said his father was a police officer in Dallas County, said he hears too often about police who break the trust of the public and keep their jobs.
He hopes his petition will catch the attention of Keller’s elected officials and police administration and change that.
“The abhorrent and unjust behavior displayed by Officer Shimanek and his colleague warrant nothing less than immediate termination and criminal charges,” Muskopf wrote in the petition description. “They displayed a total misunderstanding of civil and human rights, and this behavior cannot be tolerated any longer, by any police department.”
This story was originally published December 28, 2020 at 4:54 PM.
