Fort Worth must address race as it tackles demands on police reform, councilwoman says
If Fort Worth wants to make real strides improving race relations, the city must have “a hard conversation” about race, Councilwoman Kelly Allen Gray said Tuesday after hearing recommendations regarding police reform.
A group demanding significant change to how and where the police interact with the public agreed that Fort Worth leaders have often skirted racial conversations, but say they want to see tangible changes instead of more discussion.
Enough is Enough, one of the groups that marched for more than two weeks in Fort Worth demanding police reform and other changes, presented a list of reforms to the city last week and held a meeting with city officials, including Mayor Betsy Price, Police Chief Ed Kraus and City Manager David Cooke.
On Tuesday, the City Council heard a summary of the demands along with recommendations from Kraus and others about how the city could meet them.
Gray, a Black councilwoman whose late husband was a police officer, did not mince words, saying Fort Worth leaders have avoided discussing race and racism in the city’s past. She said many people are concerned about the city’s future if those issues aren’t addressed.
“It’s not a secret that in Fort Worth, how we dealt with the end of Jim Crow laws was that we simply just took down the signs and then went on as if, you know, racism never existed,” Gray said. “We have to get out of our own way and talk about where we came from. It’s not an easy conversation.”
Michael Campbell Jr., a defense attorney and member of Enough is Enough, said the city appeared willing to make a small step forward, but much work still needed to be done to satisfy protesters.
“People are just getting tired of the politics and the empty promises,” he said.
Defunding and alternatives to policing
Enough is Enough and other groups, such as United Fort Worth, want to move funding for the police department to community-based nonprofits and other programs.
Activists want to do away with the Crime Control Prevention District, a special half-cent sales tax that since 1995 has given the department a boost. The special tax, which is overseen by the City Council, was expected to bring in nearly $88 million this year, but the recession could cut the budget by $14 million. This revenue is in addition to more than $267 million the police department receives through the city’s general fund.
A request to renew the tax for 10 years is on the July 14 ballot.
The special tax has been criticized as a police slush fund, but City Hall officials say voters must approve it or risk losing the money.
As the city moves through the 2021 budget process, the city manager’s office and the police department will explore reallocating some of the sales tax dollars to other programs, Deputy City Manager Jay Chapa said, but few specifics have been established. Chapa said it is still unclear exactly how deeply the recession will cut into sales tax revenue.
Kraus, in an interview with the Star-Telegram, said the police department has already identified three areas that could benefit from additional funding: the crisis intervention team, which pairs specially trained officers with mental health professionals and paramedics to work with people who may be in a mental health crisis; the HOPE Unit that works with those experiencing homelessness; and a series of partner nonprofits that receive sales tax dollars to provide social services.
No dollar amount has been determined, but Kraus said the department would likely look to cutting equipment, technology and enhanced enforcement that’s funded through the special tax.
Price said the council would debate reallocating funds once the special tax is renewed, but those conversations won’t happen if voters reject the tax and the money dries up.
“That’s not a fund where the money just sits there for police,” she said.
Kraus said he is exploring a crisis diversion center that could operate as an alternative to arrest for someone in a mental health crisis or with a substance abuse issue. A program in Harris County could offer the framework, he said, as well as one in Fairfax County, Virginia.
Last week a public speaker mentioned the CAHOOTS program at the White Bird Clinic in Eugene, Oregon, which Kraus said he also wanted to look into. That program is almost completely hands off when it comes to the police.
Regardless, Kraus said it would likely require a partnership between Fort Worth, Tarrant County and other cities.
He said he was open to discussing replacing officers with mental health professionals if possible. Departments across the country have increasingly taken on roles as mental health workers, he said, often without having the proper training.
“If we can get out of that business, I would much rather leave that up to those professionals,” he said.
Police oversight
Much of the protests have focused on increasing community input in policing.
One of the top demands from Enough is Enough was also a key recommendation for the city’s Race and Culture Task Force — a community oversight board. The task force was created following the 2016 arrest of Jacqueline Craig. Craig’s case resulted in public outcry and surfaced racial and cultural inequalities in the city.
Kim Neal, the newly hired police monitor, said an initial proposal for the community police board should be ready for the council to debate in about three months.
Much of her efforts to gather input about what Fort Worth residents want from the oversight board has been hampered by the coronavirus outbreak, she said.
Neal, previously the executive director for the Citizens Complaint Authority in Cincinnati, started in early March, just before the virus shut down in-person meetings. She said she wanted to have multiple town halls to hear from residents before pitching a plan for the board to the council. Instead she’s held a few conference calls.
Neal said input has been extremely mixed on how the oversight board should operate. Some people have suggested total oversight, including subpoena powers, while other residents appear fine with the status quo of policing. She said she is hoping to find a middle ground.
“I think whatever model we suggest is not going to be one that everybody’s going to like,” she said. “We’re going to do one that’s as well balanced as possible and also gets what we need to get accomplished.”
Councilwoman Ann Zadeh said she wanted a concrete timeline for citizen oversight and other issues raised by both protesters and the Race & Culture Task Force. The city too often says “we’re talking about that,” she said.
“I can see why it would be completely frustrating to hear that narrative over and over and over again, when folks come to the table and requested things,” she said.
Activists have also asked that all disciplinary records for police officers be made public and that officers found guilty of misconduct be required to carry any financial burden of their actions.
Laetitia Brown, an assistant city attorney, said the city couldn’t legally meet these demands. Disciplinary records can only be made public if the officer is suspended for a day or more without pay, she said. The city cannot require financial penalties for misconduct, but criminal charges may carry a financial penalty.
With regard to officer discipline, Kraus said he and the police department’s command staff are working on an early intervention program that would identify officers at risk of committing misconduct and provide them with mental health and other well-being resources.
Details haven’t been finalized, but Kraus said the program would flag officers who miss shifts frequently, which may be a sign of mental or physical fatigue as well as low morale. Officers with a certain number of complaints or use-of-force incidents would also be flagged.
“There’s the hope and the goal that we would be able to identify that before it becomes a problem,” Kraus said.
An independent panel studying the police department’s policies and procedures should make early recommendations to the city in August, Chapa said. The panel was hired after former officer Aaron Dean shot Atatiana Jefferson in October.
It has been working since January and has requested dozens of documents, including body camera videos and training material. But like with Neal, Chapa said the coronavirus outbreak has slowed the panel’s ability to conduct interviews.
The August recommendations will likely be a “first blush,” Chapa said, that should be quick changes for the council to consider. The panel will provide a more comprehensive look later.
Not City Hall’s problem
City staff shifted the burden of several changes to other entities, including the county, state and school districts.
Activists requested that the council and mayor advocate for the creation of a public defender’s office in Tarrant County.
Texas has 19 public defenders offices split across 39 counties, but most contract with private lawyers. Dallas, Harris, Bexar, Travis and El Paso counties have some form of public defender’s office, making Tarrant County the state’s most populated county without such a service.
Brown, the assistant city attorney, said this wasn’t the city’s responsibility because the Fort Worth Municipal Court can only prosecute Class C misdemeanors. Those charges do not carry the right to legal counsel like higher level crimes. Brown said it would be up to the county and state to establish a public defender’s office.
This answer did not sit well with Campbell and other Enough is Enough members who said the city appeared to be passing the responsibility off.
“The city is a starting place,” he said. “The city can lobby the state and the county to make these changes.”
Critics have said the Fort Worth Police Officers’ Association, the union that represents sworn officers, has too much influence, pointing to campaign contributions. Enough is Enough requested the city limit the scope of the union’s political influence.
Brown said the union has the First Amendment right to engage in lobbying and campaign donations. The council could change its ethics policy to limit contributions.
Council members didn’t discussion union influence during the public discussion Tuesday.
Many protesters have also asked the police department to remove officers from Fort Worth schools. The department splits the cost of 79 school resource officers with six school districts and Lena Pope Home. About $10.2 million was budgeted for those officers in 2020 through the special police sales tax.
Kraus said that as long as school districts wanted officers, the department would staff them. But if a district decided an officer wasn’t needed, he said the department would work with the school to provide other security options, like electronic locks, camera systems and alarms.
Between January and mid-March, officers made 12 arrests for misdemeanor charges in schools, and responded to 525 school-related “safety threats,” Kraus said. Officers are not in schools to discipline children, he said, but are there to serve as mentors as well as deter gang and drug activity.
“I think it’s important to remember the reason officers got placed in schools in the first place and that’s to mitigate the threat of school shootings,” Kraus said.
This story was originally published June 23, 2020 at 8:10 PM.
