Police, race reforms are sluggish in Fort Worth, protest group tells city leaders
In what has become a common refrain, community members stood in front of the Fort Worth City Council for nearly two hours Tuesday, pleading for “real and significant” change to how the city handles race and policing.
Speakers suggested the city has been too slow to implement recommendations for the Race and Culture Task Force and unwilling to listen to others requesting police reform. The focus Tuesday was largely targeted at the police monitor position and the creation of a community oversight board for the department, two keystone recommendations for the task force.
A group of at least five Black women read a letter drafted by several organizations, including the Fort Worth Chapter of the NAACP. They criticized the police monitor’s office, created last year, as being poorly staffed and lacking transparency. The office’s website lacks a clear way to make a complaint regarding the police and doesn’t appear to be truly independent.
Coletta Strickland, one of the women, demanded more public input in how the office runs.
“This is concerning for the members of the community to whom she has been tasked with engaging,” she said, reading from the letter.
Kim Neal, previously the executive director for the Citizens Complaint Authority in Cincinnati, was hired in January and started in March.
Earlier in the day during a City Council work session Neal said her office, which includes her and one other person, was working on revamping the website. She has said she had hoped to hold several town halls and other community meetings, but was stymied by the coronavirus.
Other speakers wanted concrete a timeline for the community police oversight board. The city has repeatedly said Neal will be tasked with developing the board, but speakers said it’s taking too long. The task recommended the board last year.
Neal told the Star-Telegram on Tuesday she wanted to have a proposal in front of council members within three months.
“I think whatever model we suggest is not going to be one that everybody’s going to like,” she said.
Demands from many speakers Tuesday night mirrored a list of 13 police reform requests a group called Enough is Enough drafted and submitted to the city earlier this month.
Earlier in the afternoon, city staff briefed the council on the demands and the how the city could move forward with meeting them.
Michael Campbell Jr., a defense attorney and a member of Enough is Enough, called the staff recommendations a small step in the right direction, but said the city appeared unwilling to take major steps.
“People are just getting tired of the politics and the empty promises,” he said.
Some speakers said they were unhappy with how little the council discussed the proposals during the work session. Councilmen Dennis Shingleton and Cary Moon didn’t speak during the discussion.
Christie Beamer, a member of Enough is Enough, said the council and the staff recommendations glazed over demands to remove police from schools. The demand was centered around not introducing children to the criminal justice system, she said, calling school officers “a pipeline to prison.”
Several council members, including Mayor Betsy Price, voiced support for the council committing more time to debating the proposals and hearing public comment. Councilmember Jungus Jordan at one point suggested the next city council work session, scheduled for Aug. 6, but no date was set.
Enough is Enough demanded the city hold a town hall with the theme Black Lives Matter.
Price, during the work session, said she thought just one large town hall would be unproductive. Instead she pitched breaking those out into multiple smaller meetings that would focus on specific issues.
“These are conversations that go on and require a lot of work, a lot of thinking,” Price said. “Much of this work is going to go on for years and years yet to come, and our children, our grandchildren are going to inherit the work that we have all done.”
