Protesters detail 13 demands for Fort Worth and its police, plan to continue movement
For 16 days, the group Enough is Enough has marched through the streets of Fort Worth. With protests lasting at least three hours each day, the group has spent about 48 total hours demanding police reform and community change through public demonstrations.
But they aren’t done yet.
Enough is Enough leaders sat down with the Star-Telegram this week to talk about problems they see in the police department and the changes they demand for the city. On Saturday, Fort Worth police arrested three protesters. Protest leaders say this, and other actions from Fort Worth police, only proves their point about racial and training problems within the department.
“We aren’t criminals like they’re trying to make us out to be,” group leader Rod Smith said. “We’re social workers, we’re teachers, we’re business owners. And we’re saying, you know what, we have had enough.”
Enough is Enough
On Saturday, Enough is Enough had a meeting with city officials, including Mayor Betsy Price, Police Chief Ed Kraus and City Manager David Cooke, to discuss the group’s proposal for “reimagining public safety and the role of the Fort Worth Police Department.”
Rod Smith, 33, Amber O’Dell, 33, and Anthony Sosa, 35, helped write the proposal, which includes 13 demands and a budget recommendation.
“We know what is able to be done and what isn’t. We know that this is not too much to ask,” O’Dell, who is working on her master’s degree in criminal justice, said as she held the printed document at Acre Distilling in Fort Worth. “This is common sense.”
Michael Campbell Jr., an attorney for the group, Sarah Russell and protest leader Natasha “Nysse” Nelson — who goes by Nysse — sat beside them at the brewery as the group discussed their demands and future protest plans.
Some of the demands include:
Remove armed Fort Worth police from Fort Worth-area schools.
Make officers’ disciplinary history accessible to the public.
Create a Crisis Diversion Center for police to take people arrested for nonviolent crimes during mental health crises.
Host a townhall with a focus on Black Lives Matter concerns.
Smith said the meeting with city officials went well. Price will present the demands at a work session on June 23 after city attorneys determine which ones are legally possible, a city spokeswoman said.
Importantly, Smith said, Price admitted there was a problem with race relations in the Fort Worth Police Department during the meeting.
‘Defunding’ police
Through its other demands and budget proposal, the group aims to demilitarize the Fort Worth police and reallocate funds from the department to the general public.
These changes are needed to protect Black people in the city, Smith said. Fort Worth police over-police, but under-protect, the city’s Black community, he said. Smith and O’Dell attributed this to systemic racism within the department. Black people who experience this from a young age grow up distrusting the police, they said.
A 2019 independent study found Fort Worth police disproportionately arrested Black and Hispanic Fort Worth residents. As of 2019, about 19% of Fort Worth residents were Black, but Black residents made up 38% of vehicle searches by police in 2019, according to data from the Fort Worth Police Department.
Fort Worth police Sgt. Chris Daniels, a department spokesman, said the department has been focused on community-oriented policing and creating partnerships with the community.
“Our policies are in line with providing public safety and equal protection for all persons regardless of race,” he said via email.
O’Dell called this an “occupation” of black neighborhoods, and said Fort Worth police provide more protections to white residents.
“They come into our neighborhoods and terrorize our neighborhoods,” Smith said. “They’re rogue. They don’t have guidelines on how to police our communities.”
Another focus for Enough is Enough echoes a growing call across the country; defund the police.
O’Dell explained they do not want to eliminate the police department.
“But we do want to see at least portions of these funds reallocated toward supportive services that will help to build and invest in Fort Worth,” she said.
Enough is Enough wants Fort Worth to eliminate police funding from the Crime Control and Prevention District. In Fort Worth, a half cent of all sales tax goes to the city to “control and prevent crime.” This year, the city expects to receive nearly $88 million from the fund. The tax is up for a vote on July 14.
That $88 million is in addition to the $267 million already allocated to the police department. In its suggested budget, Enough is Enough cuts the department’s funding down to $74 million.
The amount of money the department currently has allows it to militarize, and a higher budget does not contribute to lower crime rates, O’Dell said.
Some argue defunding the police department would make communities less safe. But Sosa said there’s “a large percentage of the Fort Worth community that does not feel safe already.”
He pointed to the deaths of Atatiana Jefferson and Christopher Lowe, and the arrest of Jacqueline Craig, as evidence of this disparity.
“The FWPD are not protecting a good portion of the community,” he said.
Policing the protests
Enough is Enough says the way Fort Worth police handled protests proved the group’s points about problems in the department.
Nysse is in charge of security for protesters. She gets to the Tarrant County Courthouse early each day and scans the area for threats, noting how many officers are there and where they are. She said she’s watched as police have slowly escalated their tactics against protesters.
For the first week or so of protests, officers on bikes followed protesters from a distance and blocked intersections for them as they marched. On June 8, protesters went into businesses for the first time, marching through Target and restaurants.
On Saturday, police mounted on horses and on motorcycles tailed protesters, and police arrested three people involved in the protest downtown — including Nysse.
Nysse was charged with failure to identify — Sgt. Daniels said when an officer tried to cite Nysse over a city ordinance, she gave the officer a fake identity.
“Her status with her group had no bearing whatsoever on her criminal conduct nor did we see any correlation with her providing a false identity,” Daniels said.
But Nysse, and her attorney, Campbell, disagree.
“I believe that it just made their day to single me out to find the smallest thing they could do to turn me from a disabled combat veteran — who is concerned about how the police are trained because it’s unsafe to her community — to a wild criminal, that’s out here acting crazy,” Nysse said. “It was almost like their way to defame my character.”
Smith said even though the group is surrounded by police during protests, officers have not stepped in when protesters are threatened by members of the public. One man threw a cup of water in a protester’s face when the group marched inside Texas De Brazil, the group said. Smith said a man tried to run through the protest with his truck. Another threatened to do the same in Montgomery Plaza. When protesters told police, they did not take action, Smith said.
Daniels said these claims were untrue. In response to criticism about how the Fort Worth police have handled protests, Daniels said, “I believe our abilities over the past two weeks speak for themselves.”
Future plans
Enough is Enough has unified with other Fort Worth groups, such as United My Justice and Black Love, and they have no plans to stop their movement. While Sunday’s protest was silent, the group will “exercise our constitutional right to the fullest extent” at future protests, Smith said.
“We are not going to allow them to intimidate us,” he said.
On Tuesday, the group met at the courthouse at 6 p.m. to discuss the week’s plans with protesters. Wednesday evening, Enough is Enough planned to host a townhall of sorts in Trinity Park. Protesters and onlookers were invited to share their experiences with police brutality or racism, and city officials were invited to attend. Members of the community who have questions about the movement were encouraged to show up and start a dialogue.
On Thursday, the group will take another rest day. Friday, which is Juneteenth, various barbecues are planned throughout Fort Worth.
Campbell said he is talking with other attorneys about a possible civil lawsuit against the city of Fort Worth based on allegations of racial discrimination.
“We’re not a protest group,” Campbell said. “We are a group that is organizing to effectuate change in the community. However long it takes. We’re here for the long haul.”
This story was originally published June 17, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
