2 officers fired after man died in custody have returned to Fort Worth Police Department
Two officers who were fired by the Fort Worth Police Department after a man died in their custody won their appeal and have been reinstated by the department.
Daniel Pritzker and Mitchell Miller have been assigned to the department’s patrol unit and will resume duties once their updated training has been completed, Sgt. Chris Daniels said.
Before being rehired by the Fort Worth Police Department, Pritzker and Miller were hired by Parker County Sheriff Larry Fowler.
During a recent public meeting at Aledo High School, Fowler said the officers returning to Fort Worth were “a loss for me.”
Fowler did not return calls for comment.
Both officers were among the five who were fired after Christopher Lowe, 55, died in the back of a police cruiser in July 2018. Lowe repeatedly told officers he was dying and could not breathe as he was taken into custody. Instead of seeking medical care, the officers ignored Lowe’s pleas and assumed he was lying in an attempt to avoid jail, according to documents provided by the police department.
Lowe died in the back of a police cruiser while Pritzker and other officers discussed withholding details from hospital officials about how they believed Lowe was under the influence of drugs, according an arbitrator’s report.
Pritzker and Miller, along with Christopher Golden, Taylor Stephens and Hans Fellhauer, were fired in January 2019.
Two other patrol officers were suspended without pay — Scott Smith for 90 days and Andrew Scharf for five days.
All but one of the officers were rookies, having worked less than three years on the force. Smith had the longest tenure with the department at 10 years.
Each of the terminated officers appealed their case. In January, an independent arbitrator reduced Pritzker’s indefinite suspension to a 10-day suspension. Miller reached a settlement with the city and accepted a 15-day suspension in lieu of termination, Daniels said.
The remaining appeal dispositions are pending.
Daniels was only able to provide a copy of the arbitrator’s report for Pritzker. He told the Star-Telegram to file a records request for other information that wasn’t available from the department — including Miller’s settlement and the amount of back pay both officers received.
That records request has not been answered.
Lowe’s death
Lowe was holding a metal pipe and banging it on the burglar bars on the window of a home at 3304 Griggs Ave. on July 26, 2018, when Smith arrived. Police were sent to the home on a report of a possible prowler.
Smith called Golden and Miller for back up. When they arrived about two minutes later, disciplinary letters say that Lowe tossed the pipe away.
Lowe repeatedly told officers he was sick and, when Smith told him to get on his stomach, Lowe complied, according to police documents.
Lowe was handcuffed and had to be pulled to his feet after saying he was not able to stand up. He had trouble walking and collapsed repeatedly as he was led, handcuffed, and put in the back seat of the patrol car, according to the documents.
When Lowe kept struggling, Miller told him, according to police records, “That’s fine, I’ll drag you.” And later said, “You fall again, I’m just going to let you fall.”
Smith described Lowe’s eyes as being “bugged out.”
When Lowe told officers he could not breathe, Golden replied, “Don’t pull that (expletive),” the arbitrator’s letter states.
Pritzker arrived as Miller was still leading Lowe to the patrol car. Pritzker grabbed one side of the man’s body to help walk him. Lowe screamed again that he couldn’t breathe.
As they placed him into the back of a patrol car, Lowe spit on the ground and Pritzker told him, according to the documents, “If you spit on me bud, I’m going to put your face in the (expletive) dirt.”
Once he was inside the car, Lowe began to beat his head against the window and Golden threatened to pepper spray inside the car, according to their termination letter and arbitration ruling.
When Golden asked for Lowe’s name, Lowe responded again that he needed to go to the hospital. Golden told him that officers needed his name before they could take him to the hospital and Lowe cried, “please.”
The officers determined they would take Lowe to John Peter Smith Hospital. All but one of the officers walked away from the car as Lowe sat inside. According to body camera footage, Stephens and Pritzker conspired to lie to doctors so Lowe would be admitted on an emergency mental detention.
“Don’t say anything about the dope,” Pritzker told Golden. “He’s just acting crazy.”
Thirteen minutes after Lowe was put in the back of the patrol car, Scharf found him unresponsive and not breathing.
Officers then called for an ambulance and performed CPR on Lowe. He was pronounced dead shortly after arriving at John Peter Smith.
The ruling
About a month after Lowe died, a personnel complaint was filed against Pritzker alleging that he violated policy by not calling paramedics sooner, by not following the orders of his supervisor and by using profane language in front of Lowe. In November, a second complaint was filed against Pritzker for failing to search Lowe.
The initial recommendation by Capt. K.D. Rowell was to suspend Pritzker for five days. But a week later, a third complaint was filed against the officer for denying Lowe medical treatment. Then in January, a fourth complaint was filed against Pritzker for conspiring to withhold information from the hospital.
Trey Qualls, Assistant City Attorney, argued at the arbitration meeting that “what this case “boils down to” is that a “citizen died needlessly in ... police custody while officers stood around scheming about how to avoid getting stuck on hospital guard duty.”
Pritzker and his attorney argued that Pritzker’s due process rights were violated because he was not “Mirandized” during his internal investigations interview and that he wasn’t as involved in the arrest as other officers who were there — including Miller.
Another argument made for Peitzker was that the testimony against Pritzker didn’t show that he lacked good moral character and that the level of punishment imposed was not reasonable. They painted a picture of a chaotic scene in which “adrenaline was high and six of the seven officers were rookies.”
“All of the officers had different levels of interaction with Lowe and yet no one, not even the 10-year veteran officer who observed Lowe the longest, called for medical assistance because they perceived his complaints and conduct as typical of individuals suffering from ‘jailitis’ to avoid going to jail,” the 30-page ruling says.
The arbitrator decided that the level of discipline given to the officer was not reasonable.
This story was originally published February 19, 2020 at 5:55 PM.
