The Fort Worth Police Officers Association says it will push for a review of policies and procedures they say "handcuffed" officers during a slow-speed chase that lasted nearly two hours last Wednesday.
"Two-and-a-half hours is absurd," said Richard Van Houten, president of the Fort Worth Police Officers Association. "Our policies and procedures are obscure."
Fort Worth police policy does not allow for officers to hit a suspect's vehicle, according to Van Houten, and therefore the precision immobilization technique, or "PIT maneuver," performed by SWAT officer Dennis Alice was against policy.
In addition, Alice may have learned just before striking the suspect's vehicle that he was not ordered to do so. However, an attorney representing both officers facing possible disciplinary action said when SWAT was called more than an hour-and-a-half into the chase, that was the initial plan.
Terry Daffron Porter, CLEAT attorney, or Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas, said a change in plans was made toward the end of the pursuit.
"I believe the sergeant had issued a statement to Officer Alice to not ram the vehicle," Daffron Porter said. "However, Alice was already in process of executing that maneuver so it's extremely hard in the middle of an execution of a vehicle that weights several tons, has eight other officers in the back – he's trying to control and execute and being told to pull back. I don't know if there is enough time for that to happen."
"Our policies and procedures handcuffed everybody at the scene," Van Houten said. "The officers on scene did a fabulous job keeping the citizens safe from this violent felon."
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Alice was reassigned from SWAT to patrol duty pending the outcome of an internal police department investigation, according to the Fort Worth Police Officers Association.
"We've got an officer transferred without his due process rights being respected and we've got an officer sitting at home without a badge and gun because of a knee-jerk reaction without the slightest attempt at gathering fact," Van Houten said.
Officer Brian Gentry has been removed from active duty after video appears to show him striking the suspect once he is pulled from his vehicle, but Daffron Porter said it is not what it seems.
"What was perceived as Gentry taking the butt of a gun and hitting the suspect in the head never happened," Daffron Porter said. "What was happening at the time was Officer Gentry was executing a weapons retention technique."
Daffron Porter said the suspect became tangled in the strap of the non-lethal, 40mm launcher that shoots hard foam pellets. Daffron Porter said he first fired at the suspect, but it didn't appear to have much of an effect and the man went back to digging in the back seat of his car. The gun jammed and he couldn't fire another round and that's when he took the suspect down, he said.
"He took the suspect down, but in the process of doing so when the suspect came out of the vehicle his leg or arm got caught in the strap of Gentry's launcher," Daffron Porter said. "You'll notice that Gentry goes down, he waivers a little bit."
"This was a complete over reaction," Van Houten said. "I'm not going to stand up and argue that there shouldn't be a review of actions that day. I will say that review does not need to stop at those two officers. That review needs to go all the way to the top."
