Top 10 stories of 2014: Fort Worth police racial tension

Ninth in a series of the top stories of the year.

Against the backdrop of violence in other cities in 2014 as Americans confronted a divide between police and the people they are sworn to protect, Fort Worth police were working on mending broken relationships within the department and in the community.

The deaths of Michael Brown, 18, of Ferguson, Mo., and Eric Garner, 43, of Staten Island, N.Y. — black men killed by white officers — triggered violent protests in some cities.

In the past few weeks, Fort Worth too, had protests, although small and peaceful, as locals lay inside chalk outlines and stood with signs expressing anger about what some see as excessive use of force by police against minorities elsewhere.

One difference between Fort Worth and other cities: Four days before a Dec. 5 “die-in” protest in front of police headquarters, and again the morning of the protest, three organizers called Police Chief Jeff Halstead on his cellphone to let him know they were coming.

The call wasn’t made in anger, Halstead said. It was made in peace.

“The fact that these protesters are very, very upset with a national issue, but have a relationship with the Police Department where they know they can come here, voice their displeasure for what’s going on nationally, and/or locally, and we respect their right to protest, and we actually stand with them and talk with them, shows it’s not an adversarial relationship at all,” Halstead said.

In other cities, he said, an us-versus-them emotional response can flare when the trust between the community and police is broken.

Six years after Halstead took over the Fort Worth department, he is preparing to step down on Jan. 9 to start his own police consulting firm, where he plans to help “tens of thousands of employees” look to the future of 2015 — one that includes widespread use of police body cameras, an area of technology where the city of Fort Worth has been ahead of a trend.

In his place, Assistant Chief Rhonda Robertson, who also planned on retiring, will step up as interim chief until City Manager David Cooke finds a new chief.

Halstead said that the next chief will need to demonstrate what he or she has done in the past five years to drive down crime, advance policing and advance community relationships.

“In cities where in the last 15 years they have slowly gone away from community policing, now when they have a high-profile use of force incident, there’s no relationship” with the community, Halstead said.

“So they take to the streets and protest, which becomes violent because there is no relationship with their police department. We don’t have that here, so we have to make sure we respect that going forward.”

And there, Halstead and the Fort Worth Black Law Enforcement Officers Association president are agreed.

“This year has shown that the actions of a few have consequences for many and how easily tensions can escalate when a city has a weak or nonexistent community-police partnership. It only takes one tragic incident to destroy or betray trust,” said Sgt. Roy Hudson, the association president.

“The rumors are so ridiculous”

While Halstead and Hudson agree on community interaction, they clashed over the treatment of minority officers.

In August, Hudson called for Halstead to be fired, saying he has “irreparably harmed the careers of many minority officers.”

Hudson was responding to an outside investigation of grievances filed by three black officers who found hostile behavior toward them in the traffic division.

The complaints were said to have all started with a 2010 “snowman incident.” It was deemed in poor taste when three sergeants were accused of photographing a snowman outside traffic headquarters with a police cap, a noose around its neck and a banana in its hand.

Sgt. Delbert Johnson, a 24-year-veteran of the department, and two other black officers filed grievances with the city’s Human Resources Department in 2013, prompting a third-party investigation of the inner workings of the department by Coleman & Associates consultants.

A little over a week ago, Johnson filed a federal lawsuit against Halstead, the city and retired Sgt. Dave Stamp for what he called racial discrimination, retaliation and harassment dating back to 2010.

Coleman & Associates reported that it found no hard evidence of racial discrimination but did find hostile and harassing behavior that leaders did not stop. The report came out three months before Halstead announced his retirement.

Halstead said he was not pressured to retire.

A day after Halstead announced his retirement on Nov. 11, the local chapter of the Latino Police Officers Association released a statement criticizing him, stating that he “contributed significantly to negatively impacting and damaging the positive progress accomplished by our association,” chapter President Nestor Martinez wrote.

Martinez said Halstead chose to “shun” the group for years.

“As far as a character attack on me, that I am unfair or specifically delivered different discipline related to someone’s race is simply not true,” Halstead said.

“… If they pay attention to rumors, then I am the worst chief they probably ever worked with, because the rumors are so ridiculous. But if they read the investigation, they will see that I made decisions based on facts and on ethical standards of this profession.”

Communication conundrum

Halstead said that communication could stand to be improved in the department but that the Fort Worth Police Officers Association is the sole and exclusive bargaining agent for all 1,500 officers, 95 percent of whom are members.

Halstead said he is legally prevented from hashing out disagreements with the black and Latino officers groups.

“I would love to improve my communication with them, but sometimes I am legally bound as to what I can share with them,” Halstead said.

Sgt. Richard Van Houten, president of the Fort Worth Police Officers Association, said two new positions were created on the board specifically for the presidents of the black and Latino groups to express grievances and concerns.

A month ago, Martinez left his seat on the board of the Fort Worth police assotiaion without offering a reason, Van Houten said.

Martinez did not respond to repeated requests for comment for this article.

Fort Worth is the 17th-largest city in the U.S., and also one of the fastest-growing. Its next chief should have “a proven track record of placing employees first, and the ability to work in conjunction with the Fort Worth Police Officers Association as the sole and exclusive bargaining agent for all Fort Worth police officers,” Van Houten said.

“The new chief will need an arsenal of qualities such as honesty, integrity and fairness in order to tactically deal with the myriad of societal issues that law enforcement faces today,” Van Houten said.

Hudson said the next candidates for chief should be vetted through interviews with direct subordinates, political superiors, regional peers, and rank-and-file employees of the agency where the applicant last served.

“I implore the city manager to seek a chief with emotional intelligence and by this I mean a person of integrity, an individual that possesses a unifying vision that can unite and move the department forward during these troubling times, and a strategy for accomplishing the same,” Hudson said.

“The most important characteristic is a proven leader that has a sense of service to both the community and department.”

Whoever is selected as chief in 2015 will have 25 new detectives to work with and a new traffic collision analyst to monitor collisions, Halstead said.

The department has not increased the number of detectives assigned within its patrol division for close to 30 years, but the results of a 2014 audit by the nonprofit Police Executive Research Forum showed a need, he said.

That same study, which was presented in November, called for 59 more officers, who were to be moved from neighborhood policing to patrol. Halstead rejected that idea and was working on a five-year-plan to address staffing that was to be released in January.

After Halstead announced his retirement, Mayor Betsy Price said it would be best to “hit the pause button” on the strategic plan and let the new chief pick it up.

Halstead said he thinks May is the earliest a new chief can be chosen.

“If they get it done in four months that would be great, but I just don’t see it happening,” he said.

A major lesson that can be taken from 2014 into the new year is for all levels of the Police Department to keep the lines of communication open internally and externally, Hudson said.

“The best way to strengthen internal and external relationships is to remove the mystery that surrounds managerial decisions and policing in general,” he said.

This report includes material from the Star-Telegram archives.

This story was originally published December 29, 2014 at 11:01 PM with the headline "Top 10 stories of 2014: Fort Worth police racial tension."