Mayor testifies she and others lost confidence in ex-Fort Worth police chief Fitzgerald
Shortly before Joel Fitzgerald, former Fort Worth police chief, was told he was fired, Mayor Betsy Price got the news that he would be offered a choice to resign or be terminated.
Price testified during a hearing Monday that she had lost confidence in the chief long before she found out he was going to be fired in May.
Price emphasized that firing decisions about the police chief are left to the city manager and the assistant city manager.
“He did not have good rapport with many people,” Price said.
Police, ministers and small community groups had also lost confidence in Fitzgerald’s ability to do the job, Price said.
“Certainly he had groups who supported him, but others did not,” Price said.
Price made her comments during a hearing to determine whether an injunction will remain in place that prevents the city of Fort Worth from hiring a new police chief while Fitzgerald’s wrongful termination lawsuit is pending. The city is challenging that ruling. The hearing will continue Tuesday.
Price said Fitzgerald’s recommendation that her six-man security detail be reduced was “very disingenuous.” Price said she also questioned Fitzgerald’s commitment to the city after it appeared he was going to take the police chief’s job with the city of Baltimore.
“I felt his performance had waned and that he was not focused on the city,” Price said. “He had committed to taking another job.”
At the time of his firing, however, City Manager David Cooke had not said anything to Price about an investigation Fitzgerald was conducting into possible official corruption and criminal activity regarding computer security issues, Price testified.
Computer security investigation stopped after firing
Earlier on Monday, Mason Fincher, the officer who was investigating the corruption and security lapse allegations, testified that after Fitzgerald was fired, the investigation stopped.
Fincher, who was listed as Fitzgerald’s driver, testified that he was reassigned to a desk job after the chief was fired. Fincher said he was prepared to share his findings with two FBI agents who were waiting in the hallway to see Fitzgerald on May 20, the day Fitzgerald was terminated.
“I was told to go stall the FBI,” by an unidentified city official, Fincher said.
Rabiah Memon, a city of Fort Worth information technology worker, testified that she resigned due to stress after she told Fitzgerald about her concerns regarding computer security violations.
Memon said that she shared the information with Fitzgerald on May 19 over the phone and was prepared to do it the next day in person but could not hand over the information before Fitzgerald was fired.
Memon said she later sent a memo outlining those same security concerns to three city officials.
The information Momon shared said the city had allowed data and messages between workers in the information technology department to disappear after attorneys had sent notice that all data related to multiple lawsuits should be preserved.
City says hiring a police chief does no harm
Fitzgerald sought the restraining order so he could make a case for indefinitely delaying the hiring of a new chief. In July, State District Judge Gena Slaughter approved a temporary restraining order that is set to expire on Tuesday.
But according to lawyers representing Fort Worth, it will not matter to Fitzgerald if the city hires a new police chief. If the courts rule that Fitzgerald must be reinstated as police chief, whoever is hired as police chief has to step down, attorney Lynn Winter argued for the city.
In lieu of removing a new police chief, the city of Fort Worth could pay Fitzgerald additional money damages, Winter said.
“It just doesn’t make sense that we have to leave a space open for him,” Winter said.
Fitzgerald’s attorney Stephen Kennedy wrote in a letter to the presiding judge that city officials have stated they can hire or fire a police chief at will, which Kennedy asserts is a violation of the Fort Worth city charter.
The city has stood by its decision to fire Fitzgerald. In a termination memo in May, Assistant City Manager Jay Chapa references several examples of Fitzgerald’s “increasing lack of good judgment.”
Fitzgerald, who filed a lawsuit asking for reinstatement and alleging government corruption, alleges Fort Worth employees lied about the city’s compliance with regulations concerning the security of CJIS, a federally maintained criminal justice information system.
Edwin Kraus has been serving as interim chief since Fitzgerald was fired in May.
Kraus was one of two witnesses who testified at Monday’s hearing before a lunch break.
Kraus testified that the city’s IT department misled the police department about CJIS encryption, log and other compliance issues.
Kraus said that employees with felony convictions had been allowed access they shouldn’t have had to CJIS data. He said under his administration, he doesn’t allow anyone with Class B misdemeanor or greater convictions access to that data.
But Kraus said he talked to an FBI special agent after Fitzgerald was fired and was assured there was no criminality in what they had reviewed. He said he wasn’t sure whether Fincher completed his investigation or what Fincher might have uncovered if his investigation had continued.
Kraus said the city has passed a CJIS security audit.
Fitzgerald has said he had a meeting scheduled with the FBI on the day he was fired.
While he was being deposed in October, Texas Department of Public Safety auditor Oswald Enriquez said that six years ago it was discovered that the lack of a certain type of encryption software made the police department’s data vulnerable and that he received assurances from city employees that the issue would be resolved.
“And I was told it was and it wasn’t,” Enriquez said, according to a transcript of the deposition.
Enriquez said the incorrect information was also shared with the FBI, according to the transcript.
The city’s lawyers also have asked the court to award Fort Worth a protective order that would keep certain information secret if it is divulged during the course of the lawsuit.
City officials say the goal is to protect information related to the personal matters of the city’s officers, employees or citizens, or as it relates to security and network vulnerability. The side wishing to have the information designated as confidential would bear the burden of proving that information by law should be kept secret from the public, according to a statement from the city.
Slaughter did allow into evidence one document that could possibly contain sensitive computer security information, under the condition that any compromising information be kept under seal or redacted.
This story was originally published November 18, 2019 at 1:59 PM.
