Fort Worth’s new police chief wants to tackle generations of mistrust. Here’s how
Neil Noakes has been the chief of the Fort Worth Police Department for two weeks and says he’s already made the department more transparent with the public, which he hopes will help build trust with citizens.
Noakes, 46, was referring to two officers who were placed on restricted duty for social media posts that were “racially insensitive and inappropriate.” The chief said he released information about the internal investigation despite not having received any media requests or citizen complaints about the posts, a move that previous chiefs hadn’t often made.
“We say we are transparent, we say we hold officers accountable, and we do,” Noakes said. “We have to make sure we show that in our actions.”
Noakes took over a department that faced public scrutiny following six fatal shootings by police in 2019 including the shooting of Atatiana Jefferson. He said he understands why the trust isn’t there, built off generations of bad policing.
“If you go back to the history of policing, you see a lot of great things that have happened and you see some things that weren’t so great,” Noakes said. “There are people still alive today who lived through the Civil Rights era, who witnessed things that may not have been done by me, or the officers on the Fort Worth Police Department now, but were done by people who wore uniforms, people who wear badges.”
Noakes said his goal is to bring the community and police department together. For example, after false rumors spread following Jefferson’s death that she was shot by a member of the department’s Special Response Team, Noakes said they introduced people who were vocal about their dislike of the team to the members of it.
For about an hour, officers listened to complaints and concerns from those people, including how officers often go into neighborhoods, arrest someone and leave without explanation.
“They said maybe you could just stay back and somebody can talk to us and tell us what happened and why you’re there, so we started to do that,” Noakes said. “And it was amazing what kind of a connection we got with the community and our SRT team just by communicating.”
Noakes said he plans to have similar meetings between the community and other policing teams.
Fort Worth advocates have also said that a significant amount of distrust stems from the power the union has over officers who are fired. A 2020 Star-Telegram investigation found that 50% of officers who appealed their firings over a five-year period won their jobs back. The appeal process is part of an officer’s rights given to them through local government code and contracts between the city and police association, Noakes said.
But, if he decides to fire an officer for any reason, Noakes said he will stand by that decision.
“If they get their jobs back, they have their jobs back and that is frustrating sometimes when it’s someone that a chief doesn’t believe models the behavior that we want to see in officers,” he said. “If an officer appeals and gets their job back, I’ll still own my decision.”
Any investigation into police misconduct would be done thoroughly enough to stand up in an appeals hearing, Noakes said. And Noakes said the way the social media posts have been handled is a telling sign that there’s change in the department’s culture.
“The inappropriate, insulting post that was made was brought to the attention of the department by another officer,” he said. “I know that’s something that the city, the civilians, the citizens want to see. Because a lot of people think there’s a blue wall of silence, where cops don’t talk about other cops. We see more officers now who are socially conscious, that are aware of what’s going on, and they want to know when other officers do things that are negative and makes all of us look bad.”
Asked if he will reveal the officer’s names or information about the social media posts, Noakes said the department needs to “protect the integrity of the investigation” but that more information on both investigations should be released “fairly quickly.”
Another priority for Noakes is addressing the rise in violent crime seen in the city that matches data across the country. In 2020, the city surpassed 100 homicides for the first time since 1995.
At a public forum when Noakes was still a police chief finalist, he talked about addressing the societal issues that lead to crime, such as poverty, food insecurity and lack of good education.
On Friday, he said police need to acknowledge that those things exist.
“I don’t like when an officer says, ‘Well, it’s not my job,’ and just leaves it at that,” he said. “We need to work with other social agencies to provide the resources people need because usually when someone is in some sort of crisis, who responds? The police respond. That gives us an opportunity to do whatever we possibly can to set that person up for success with whatever issue they’re dealing with.”
Noakes is also in the midst of creating a non-fatal shooting response team that will help detectives focus on stopping violent offenders.
Noakes is from Millsap, west of Weatherford, and frequently visited Fort Worth when he was growing up. He lives in Aledo with his wife and children and they plan to move to Fort Worth.
This story was originally published February 9, 2021 at 6:00 AM.
