Fort Worth Police Department doesn’t follow policies consistently, expert review finds
The Fort Worth Police Department needs to “up its communications game,” according to an interim status report on police department operations that was presented to the City Council.
The report’s findings were outlined during the Fort Worth City Council work session Tuesday by Theron Bowman and Alex del Carmen, the two leaders of the city’s expert police reform panel.
The report’s findings do not contain final conclusions and do not examine uses of lethal force or stop and arrest practices, Bowman said.
But it was pointed out that Fort Worth Police Chief Ed Kraus has already implemented some of the report’s recommendations and is working on implementing others.
A preliminary report on the panel’s recommendations was released online just minutes after a meeting between members of the Fort Worth Police Department Expert Review Panel and community stakeholders on Friday.
What the panel found during its initial review can be broadly categorized as areas of inconsistency — where programs, systems and training protocols either were not applied evenly or inadequate follow-through resulted in negative outcomes.
“There is a disconnect in what happens on the street sometimes and what the policies require,” Bowman said.
Bowman said also that at times officers unnecessarily escalate encounters with civilians beyond what is required to achieve compliance with their orders.
Kraus said the department is trying to integrate de-escalation tactics so that they are an integral part of an officer’s use-of-force training and are not viewed by officers as stand-alone training.
Officers are also being trained that failure to utilize appropriate de-escalation and force-avoidance strategies is contrary to policy, Kraus said. Officers must be able to articulate what de-escalation tactics were attempted during an encounter where force was used, Kraus said.
The panel’s findings also concluded that:
▪ Adherence to using force-avoidance and de-escalation tactics is uneven and those tactics need to be applied consistently to establish trust between the police department and community members. The uneven application of force also erodes the department’s ability to forge partnerships that would enhance public safety efforts.
▪ The department’s crisis intervention service doesn’t function well. Efforts to link those facing homelessness or substance abuse to services are inadequate and lack funding.
The crisis intervention team typically has a staff of six and operates from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, Bowman said. Illness, promotions, and training can reduce staffing totals in the team to three, Bowman said.
Kraus said this surprised him and the department is adding officers to bring the team numbers up to 20 and make it more responsive. The department is also reaching out to mental health professionals in the community for training and guidance, Kraus said.
▪ The department’s Internal Affairs and other accountability systems are fractured and spread across multiple chains of command, making it difficult to ensure discipline is applied in a consistent manner.
▪ The department has effective data collection systems, comprehensive policies, and leadership who can lead through evidence-based best practices. But in many cases, the data collected, especially data regarding officer conduct, is not effectively used to identify strengths and weaknesses in training, supervision, policy, tactics or accountability.
▪ Fort Worth must make efforts to maximize important investments the city has made in policy development, training, technology and facilities.
City Councilman Jungus Jordan commented that some of what he heard during the presentation was that police had good policies that some officers were not following, and that the problem was not just that more officers were needed.
“Officers and leadership are committed to putting out a good product, but they are under resourced,” Bowman said.
Donnell Ballard, United My Justice Fort Worth president, said members of his group discussed some of the same issues, such as mental health care services and training, with city leaders when they met in late July.
The Fort Worth Police Department has jurisdiction over a city of nearly one million residents — 40% who are white, 35% who are Latinx and nearly 20% who are Black, the report said. Sixteen percent live in poverty and a third speak a language other than English in the home, the report said. Like many cities, the legacy of residential housing segregation still divides Fort Worth, according to the report, and the opportunities for miscommunication abound.
“There are so many people with mental illness who do not understand the commands,” Ballard said. “You can’t continue to shoot people just because they cannot comprehend your commands.”
But Ballard, 49, who says he has been marching and protesting about these same issues since before he was 16, is hopeful because at least now city leaders are willing to talk and to listen.
“I left the meeting and I felt that we are finally getting somewhere,” Ballard said. “The chief and the mayor are having conversations with us that we weren’t able to have in the beginning. That means a lot. At some point we have to sit at the table together. I’m looking forward to more meetings in the future.”
A decision on phase two of the review, which will ultimately be up to the City Manager’s Office, will not be made until the completion of phase one, a statement from the mayor’s office said. Mayor Betsy Price is awaiting the completion of this current phase before commenting on any future work, the statement said.
