Fort Worth council rejects police advisory board, sinking key equity recommendation

The Fort Worth City Council voted down a proposed police advisory board Tuesday, rejecting a key recommendation by its Race and Culture Task Force.

The board voted 5-4, with council members Carlos Flores, Michael Crain, Alan Blaylock and Leonard Firestone, as well as Mayor Mattie Parker, voting “no” on the item to create the board. Council members Gyna Bivens, Jared Williams, Chris Nettles and Elizabeth Beck were the “yes” votes for the item.

The vote came after nearly two hours of public comment, more than an hour of heated comments by council members, and a failed amended motion by Councilman Flores that he later attempted to withdraw.

The proposed board would not have been an explicit oversight board but would act as an advisory board, according to the ordinance.

The board would be made up of nine members, who would review police policy and practices, recommend changes to the police chief and serve as an additional avenue for community input.

Requirements for members of the board would include having diverse community perspectives, not having been convicted of a felony and not being a current law enforcement officer or being related to a current or former police officer.

Prominent Black community leaders voiced their support of the board, including Dione Sims, Michael Bell and Bob Ray Sanders, the latter of whom was a co-chair of the Race and Culture Task Force.

In 2018, the task force presented a comprehensive report that laid out more than 20 recommendations to the city council to improve racial and cultural equity in the city.

The task force was created after the 2016 arrest of Jacqueline Craig, who was tackled and arrested by a Fort Worth police officer, but whose charges were dropped after body camera footage was leaked. The footage went viral, and Craig was later awarded $150,000 by the city.

Since then, the 2019 killing of Atatiana Jefferson by a police officer inside her home during a non-emergency call made national headlines.

The task force made a civilian oversight board of the police department its first recommendation in regard to making criminal justice improvements. The city manager later established the police monitor office to create criteria for the oversight board.

Kim Neal, who heads that office, said she’s been working with the police department and a work group on the criteria for the board since she was hired in 2020.

Neal said she brought the proposal to the council in September 2021.

Supporters of the advisory board said it was about time the council listens to the recommendations of the committee and the plea of marginalized citizens to create a review board.

Sanders said the task force wanted to see criteria that would be specific to the needs of Fort Worth and he believes the proposal was thorough.

“Give [communities] a reason to trust the system that has been unjust,” he told the council. “Give these communities who feel that to this day they’re still waiting to be treated fairly and with dignity.”

Some opponents of the board said the policy proposed would be unnecessary and adversarial to police, while others took issue with the specific requirements of who could and couldn’t be on the board.

Russell Fuller, president of the North Fort Worth Alliance, said the police monitor office is already doing enough to oversee the department.

“Initiating another administrative body to look at the same information and make recommendations on the same information is a waste of time and money,” he said.

Activist Opal Lee and other speakers suggested that the vote should be moved to a different day due to Tuesday being an election night.

Councilman Nettles, a strong proponent of the policy, said it’s important that communities of color have a seat at the table when it comes to police matters.

“If you vote no to this today, to me, it says you do not support the community of color,” he said. “It says to me that you don’t support the Black and brown community that undoubtedly has a target on their back. It says to me you rather support the [Fort Worth Police Officers Association] than the community.”

Councilman Firestone, who opposed the measure, questioned the necessity of the board with the existence of the police monitor office, despite it being the entity that proposed the advisory board and Neal leaving her position in late November.

Firestone said there’s already a culture change going on at the police department for the better and that Chief Neil Noakes acts quickly to resolve problems.

“It’s about culture. It’s about a change agent. It’s about city leadership and police leadership that are encouraging and wanting a change agent,” he said. “And that’s what we’re experiencing ... We’re addressing problems now.”

Noakes, who opposed the advisory board, said he didn’t feel like the department was involved enough in creating the proposal and said other police chiefs with similar boards said they were detrimental to community and police relations.

Noakes said regardless of the vote, his commitment to Fort Worth would not change.

Nettles said he’s been trying to get the council to vote on the agenda for a long time and has been compromising on it with his fellow council members and the chief.

“This is the most watered-down police board in America,” he said. “Because we tried to come to some type of consensus, to some type of compromise. And even with a board, a snaggletooth board with no teeth … you still cannot support it?”