Police chief: Fort Worth officer was rude but not racist in video

FORT WORTH, Texas — Officials in Fort Worth, Texas, said Friday that they were disturbed and outraged at the video of a police officer arresting a woman and her two daughters after she called to report the assault of her son, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.

The officer, who is white, was placed on restricted duty Thursday, one day after he was captured on a cellphone video wrestling Jacqueline Craig, who is black, to the ground to make the arrest, the Dallas Morning News reported. The incident set off a flurry of claims of racism and led to a protest in downtown Fort Worth, the Star-Telegram reported.

Fort Worth Police Chief Joel Fitzgerald said Friday that the officer acted rudely but added that he “can’t call (the incident) racism.”

“What I can say is that I noticed in the video that the officer was rude,” said Fitzgerald, who is black. “And there is a difference between rude and racist.”

The video, which was streamed live on Facebook and has gone viral, was shot Wednesday after Craig called Fort Worth police to report that a neighbor had choked her 7-year-old son to get him to pick up trash.  She and the officer, whose name has not been released, got into a verbal altercation. By the end of the profanity-laced encounter, the officer had handcuffed Craig and her two daughters, ages 15 and 19, the Morning News reported.

The video, which lasted nearly six minutes, was shot by Craig’s cousin, Porsha Craver, according to the Star-Telegram. Since being posted on Facebook on Wednesday, the video has had more than 2.8 million views and nearly 100,500 shares.

In the video, the officer is talking to the man accused of assaulting Craig’s son. Craig, 46, said no one had the right to touch her son.

The officer responded, "Why don't you teach your son not to litter?"

"It doesn't give him the right to put his hands on (her son)," Craig answered.

The officer asked, "Why not?"

Craig yelled at the officer, telling him that he was upsetting her.

"If you keep yelling at me, you're going to piss me off," the officer said.

At that point, the video shows Craig's 15-year-old daughter trying to push her mother away from the officer. At the 1:50 mark of the video, the officer pulls out his stun gun and presses it into Craig's back as he takes her to the ground. More people yell as he points his stun gun at the teen and arrests Craig.

Fort Worth police said Craig was arrested for outstanding traffic tickets in addition to resisting arrest.  She and her daughters have been released from jail, The Associated Press reported.

Police spokesman Marc Povero said Friday that the video started about two minutes after the officer arrived. Two officers had been dispatched on the call, per department policy, but one officer arrived sooner than the other and was the only officer on the scene during the incident, Povero said.

The officer’s body camera was active from the time he arrived, Povero said.

Fitzgerald said the body camera footage will not be released to the public because a juvenile was involved. In order for it to be released, the Texas attorney general’s office would have to rule otherwise, he said

S. Lee Merritt, Craig’s attorney, accused the officer of racism. If the child had been white and the man accused of hurting him had been black, “There's no way on God's green earth” that he would have walked free, Merritt said.

Craig cried during a news conference Thursday. She said she thought she was helping her son when she called police.

"It made me feel less of a parent that I couldn't protect him when he needed it," she said.

Attorney Terry Daffron, who represents the officer as counsel for the Combined Law Enforcement Association of Texas, said people shouldn't jump to conclusions based solely on the video, the Star-Telegram reported.

"As has become the norm in our society, the video does not show the entire interaction between the officer and the individuals on the scene," Daffron said in a statement to the newspaper. "It is shameful that there is an immediate rush to judgment that my client is a racist cop simply because of the color of his skin ... I am confident that when all of the facts, evidence, and information come to light, it will present a different account of the events."

Reaction to the video was swift and harsh. Two protests merged into one in downtown Fort Worth. One of them was organized by the Next Generation Action Network, which advocates against police brutality.

Terri Burke, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, said in a prepared statement that the officer ignored basic community policing standards and his duty to defuse the situation.

Fort Worth pastor Sharon Mason Ford-Turner said Craig called police for help and received none.

"When we call the Fort Worth PD, we want help. Not to be arrested," she told the Morning News. "She called him to help. And he questioned her."

State representative Nicole Collier said she was outraged by what she saw on the video.

“Instead of actually trying to calm the situation,” Collier told the Star-Telegram, “this police officer engaged in behavior that was not in line with the standard of conduct with the Fort Worth Police Department.”

Cox Media Group