Fort Worth police officer reinstated after being fired for excessive force arrest
Police Sgt. Kenneth Pierce’s firing has been overturned and his punishment reduced to 35 days without pay.
Pierce was fired in 2017 after ordering another officer to use a Taser on an African-American woman who called for help and was arrested.
The reversal means that Pierce will receive back pay for the time beyond 35 days when he was not working and will maintain his rank of sergeant, according to his attorney, Terry Daffron. Pierce has given up his appeals for promotion, Daffron said.
Daffron did not comment on whether Pierce would be assigned to the same neighborhood or job that he held before his firing. Allegations of excessive use of force during an unlawful arrest were not sustained, Daffron said.
“I am happy with the results and I think the right thing was done,” she said. Pierce did not attend the administrative hearing Wednesday morning at the Bob Bolen Public Safety Complex but Daffron said he was happy to be getting back to work.
An administrative examiner signed the settlement agreement between the parties that reinstated Pierce on the police force 10 minutes after the hearing was opened.
Pierce had instructed a rookie officer to use a Taser on Dorshay Morris, 29, during the incident outside her apartment in east Fort Worth in August 2017. Morris had called 911 for help in a domestic violence case.
Police Chief Joel Fitzgerald said in 2017 that Pierce, a 22-year veteran of the department, became “impatient” and “initiated an unnecessary physical confrontation” with Morris. The specific charges against Pierce were neglect of duty, failure to supervise and violating the department’s use-of-force policy.
Daffron, and Rick Van Houten, then president of the Fort Worth Police Officers Association, criticized the chief’s decision to fire Pierce. Pierce appealed his termination.
Fitzgerald “got this one wrong,” Van Houten said after the firing, adding that the “facts of this case do not add up to a termination” for Pierce.
Van Houten and Daffron also released the 911 call that led to the arrest as well as a report filed by the police department’s use-of-force expert, who said Pierce’s behavior was “well within the FWPD Use of Force policy and falls in line with what is commonly taught to both recruits and incumbents.”
Cpl. Chancey Pogue, the use-of-force expert, said he “did not see any force option or control tactic used” by Pierce and the officer who used the Taser on Morris that would have violated department policy. However, an internal affairs investigation concluded that “there was no basis for the initial arrest; therefore, any force used to apply handcuffs was unreasonable,” the charging letter said.
A group from the Fort Worth African-American community attended the hearing Wednesday and voiced disapproval of Pierce’s reinstatement.
“They are saying it’s OK,” Morris, the woman who was arrested, said after the hearing. “They are saying they can do anything they want to anyone. If we do something to police we get locked up but if they do anything to us they walk away.”
Jasmine Crockett, the attorney representing Morris, said the private nature of the negotiations between the city and Daffron that led to the reinstatement was a sham. Under normal circumstances, everyone is looped in, but no one ever contacted her or Morris, Crockett said.
“They knew they were going to backtrack and do this anyway,” Crockett said. “This was all done hush-hush.”
Daffron said that negotiations between attorneys are typically done in private.
A letter obtained by WFAA from the Tarrant County district attorney’s office to Fitzgerald said officers acted legally in the Morris arrest, under state and federal law.
Kyev Tatum, a Fort Worth pastor and activist, disagreed in a statement released Tuesday: “Fired Fort Worth Police Officer Kenneth Pierce Should Not Get his Job Back,” he said.
Tatum called on all candidates in the mayor’s race and city council election to denounce the rehiring.
“We can not embrace the idea of One Fort Worth when Fort Worthians are being treated two different ways, one right and one wrong,” Tatum’s statement said. “The City must uphold his termination.”
The Morris arrest reminded many of an arrest involving a white officer, an African-American mother and her two daughters in December 2016.
A viral video of the arrest of Jacqueline Craig and her two daughters ignited the community, with some calling for the firing of both the officer who made the arrest and Fitzgerald. In the end, Officer William Martin was suspended for 10 days, and a task force was formed on race and culture.
Craig is African-American and Martin is white. Craig became a central figure on Dec. 21, 2016, after she called 911 to report that a neighbor had assaulted her son for littering. After Officer Martin arrived at the scene, he asked Craig, “Why don’t you teach your son not to litter?”
The situation escalated as a crowd gathered and Craig and her two daughters were eventually arrested. The charges were later dropped, but not before a video of the arrest took off on social media.
Craig has filed a damage claim with the city, saying, “My children and I were assaulted, falsely imprisoned, subject to extreme distress and overall constitutionally violated by Officer Martin as I attempted to resolve a matter involving my son and an adult neighbor. Since this incident my family is in fear of being watched and harassed due to the aggressive and unprofessional behavior of Officer Martin.”
This story includes information from Star-Telegram archives.
This story was originally published January 30, 2019 at 9:43 AM with the headline "Fort Worth police officer reinstated after being fired for excessive force arrest."
