At southside church meeting on policing, mayor says ‘We’ve got to rebuild trust’
Fort Worth was selected in 2015 to participate in a federal pilot program aimed at improving relations between law enforcement and the public.
The city was one of the six that the U.S. Justice Department picked to be part of the $4.75 million trial project called the National Initiative for Building Community Trust and Justice, and its officers received training on increasing fairness, reducing discrimination and strengthening relationships.
The reasons that Fort Worth merited the program fester four years later, Mattie Compton said Thursday night at a forum at Baker Chapel A.M.E. Church on the city’s southside. The session focused on policing and the death nearly two weeks ago of Atatiana Jefferson, a black woman who was shot to death in her home by Fort Worth Officer Aaron Dean.
“This house is on fire,” Compton said to applause. She suggested city officials use their “biggest hose” to correct its policing failings.
Taking questions from people at microphones in the church aisles were Mayor Betsy Price, and city council members Kelly Allen Gray and Ann Zadeh. Also on the panel were Bob Ray Sanders, co-chair of the city’s race and justice task force, and Roderick Miles Jr., a staffer for Tarrant County Commissioner Roy C. Brooks.
“We’ve got to rebuild trust,” Price said.
That will come in part, the mayor said, when the city begins to recruit more black and Hispanic police officers.
About 12% of Fort Worth Police Department employees are black and 21% are Hispanic or Latino, according to city data. About 35% percent of the city’s residents identify as Hispanic or Latino and 19% are black, according to the U.S. Census.
“We can do better, and we will,” Price said.
Many of the questions Thursday night focused on hiring plans for a police monitor, a civilian who will guide the council and city staff on a citizen review board. It is not clear what such a board’s role would be and what powers it may have. That was a matter the monitor will take up, Price and others said.
Zadeh said she thought the city needed to add black patrol officers, develop a response option outside the police department for some calls that do not involve crimes and “slow and reverse increased militarization” of policing.
Gray said police officers must grow deep relationships with city residents.
“We can’t just have the police riding through the neighborhood and keep going,” Gray said.
Price left the forum early, about 50 minutes after it began and when about 40 minutes remained. She said her relatives had not seen much of her recently and had agreed to join them for dinner.
“Occasionally family has to come first,” Price said at the beginning of the forum as she told the crowd she would be leaving early.
“I do hate to leave you all but I have to join my family,” the mayor said before she departed.
This story was originally published October 24, 2019 at 9:42 PM.
