Ft. Worth Police Officer Shoots Woman Through Her Window

[andre3k]

https://www.fox4news.com/live

More specifically, the officer resigned before he could be fired and his separation from FWPD is being reported to the Texas Peace Officer licensing body as “under dishonorable conditions.” In plain English this is “resigned in lieu of termination so whether he is prosecuted or not he will never be a cop in TX again.

It’s worth listen to what the FWPD Chief said in the linked press conference. As I mentioned earlier FWPD is pretty squared away and they dealing with this head on.

If he still has his TCOLE license then he can likely find police work. There is a pecking order in TX LE and when you're no longer a 1st round draft pick with a larger agency you can often find LE work with constables offices and any number of smaller agencies that's willing to take someone elses problem child to put a warm body in a patrol car. That's why you have a lot of these gypsy cops floating around that go from one agency to another despite being horrible officers.

[HCM]

If he still has his TCOLE license then he can likely find police work. There is a pecking order in TX LE and when you're no longer a 1st round draft pick with a larger agency you can often find LE work with constables offices and any number of smaller agencies that's willing to take someone elses problem child to put a warm body in a patrol car. That's why you have a lot of these gypsy cops floating around that go from one agency to another despite being horrible officers.

All of this is accurate but I don’t think it will take long before his TCOLE license is revoked for cause.

Licensing aside, I don’t even the “departments of last resort” will touch this guy due to the notoriety.

[Coyotesfan97]

I’ve gone to plenty of calls like this. Check the open doors for forced entry then hold and announce. If there is no response I can see checking the rest of the structure. I haven’t heard why the announcement wasn’t done.

I would most likely put this on lack of experience and potentially training. I have no clue what FWPD requires to be an FTO but I see FTOs without a service stripe training new Officers. I had no desire to be an FTO until I hit five years. Being an FTO is hard work and unless you’re giving some incentives like increased pay or better days off senior Officers probably aren’t going to do it. If you have new guys training newer guys earned experience isn’t getting passed on.

One of the drawbacks of bidding for shifts is that generally you don’t have a lot of experience on graveyards. You’ll usually see one squad with weekends off packed with experience and the other squads not so much. If you look at the squad with the middle of the week off you’ll generally see Officers just out of field training to just off probation and their Sergeant is usually just promoted.

When I’m searching with my dog I’m trying to knock on doors getting permission to check backyards. We wake a lot of people up at 0200. If I can’t get an answer at the door I’ve got a decision to make. Do I go in the backyard or not? A lot depends on the exigency, who I’m looking for, and what my dog or other dogs are doing. A violent felon who was seen jumping a yard a couple doors away and my dog is showing interest at the gate. Maybe another handler’s dog is showing interest or alerting over the fence from an adjoining yard. Yeah I’ll go in and search. An unknown suspect who ran from a traffic stop for unknown reasons probably not.

If I’m searching a yard without being able to contact the homeowners I’m expecting to encounter them or their dog. An announcement and/or making noise at the gate to see if a dog responds. A very small percentage of the time I’ve pulled back hurriedly after seeing a dog coming out of a doggie door. I’ve encountered armed homeowners before and the first thing I’m saying is Police K9! Most of the time I search the yard and leave without disturbing anyone. I plan on encountering suspect, homeowner, or dog and have responses planned. But that’s from a lot of experience searching at night. ETA the overwhelming amount of time I search and leave without being noticed or causing a reaction.

I used to work an off duty job patrolling in an HOA subdivision on a weekend night. One of the things they really wanted us to look for was open garage doors. Open garage doors can lead to some felony crimes. If I found one I checked the garage from the exterior as much as I could and then I contacted homeowners so they could shut the door. One time I had a homeowner open the door in the early AM with a gun in his hand. It was behind him so I couldn’t see it. I told him his garage door was open and he told me he had the gun. I thanked him for telling me and I understood why he was armed. He thanked me for telling him about the garage and I left. I’m not sure what a less experienced Officer would do in that situation.

[TC215]

The MDT messages for the call are at the beginning of the body cam video released by FWPD. The article linked in post #2 includes the video as well as link to the call by the neighbor to the non emergency line.

If that was all the info he had, I don’t believe I would have responded the same way, especially if there were no signs of forced entry on the open door.

Terrible situation. I did a knock and talk a few years ago where I could see someone (turned out to be the homeowner) through the window on the stairs begin to raise a gun towards the door as I was knocking. My partner and I jumped off the porch and got cover behind a couple of trees. It did not end the way this video did, but if I had been younger and dumber, who knows what would have happened.

[blues]

If that was all the info he had, I don’t believe I would have responded the same way, especially if there were no signs of forced entry on the open door.

Terrible situation. I did a knock and talk a few years ago where I could see someone (turned out to be the homeowner) through the window on the stairs begin to raise a gun towards the door as I was knocking. My partner and I jumped off the porch and got cover behind a couple of trees. It did not end the way this video did, but if I had been younger and dumber, who knows what would have happened.

Not younger...not dumber, imho. If you weren't who you are, maybe. I'm sure you're a better LEO now as you've grown and matured in the job, but my gut tells me that you always had the instincts and the chops. We've all seen those individuals who when serving a warrant, doing an entry, making an arrest are ones that you have to pay extra attention to, or are ones you're not quite comfortable with making any decisions on their own that haven't been specifically mapped out in advance...and even then, not so much.

Just a hunch on my part.

[Sensei]

All of this is accurate but I don’t think it will take long before his TCOLE license is revoked for cause.

Licensing aside, I don’t even the “departments of last resort” will touch this guy due to the notoriety.

Agreed. I suspect that he will be indicted shortly. The fact that he resigned so quickly and the speed at which his department leadership was moving against him tells me that he has competent legal counsel advising him to sacrifice his job with the hopes of minimizing the chance of prison. In other words, the loss of his job was a foregone conclusion and participating in an IA investigation would only provide more evidence for his eventual prosecution.

[0ddl0t]

Would we be affording the deceased woman the same courtesy if she'd got the jump on the cop and shot him dead since he didn't announce himself? Or would we be screaming about "tHeRe'S a wAr oN cOpS" and demanding she burn at the stake?

Some no knock raids where the homeowner fired at what they thought was an intruder. None went well for the homeowner:

Kathryn Johnston
Ryan Frederick
Tyler Harrell
Martin Louis Guy

[El Cid]

Some no knock raids where the homeowner fired at what they thought was an intruder. None went well for the homeowner:

Kathryn Johnston
Ryan Frederick
Tyler Harrell
Martin Louis Guy

But no-knocks are typically for dope. Were those people you listed criminals or law abiding citizens and LE hot the wrong address? If LE were to ever accidentally hit my place it would be very bad because I would believe it was a home invasion crew masquerading as LE.

I haven’t looked for the video - I’m sure it’s in the LE deadly force thread. Someone posted body camera of a cop responding to a home alarm. Owner raised a gun at the cop outside the front door and was shot. This was not that long ago. Luckily I think the resident lived. He apparently did not know the alarm had been triggered.

[TGS]

Charged with Murder.

[Stephanie B]

Some no knock raids where the homeowner fired at what they thought was an intruder. None went well for the homeowner:

Kathryn Johnston
Ryan Frederick
Tyler Harrell
Martin Louis Guy

I have a dim memory of a case in the early '70s when two VA cops did a no-knock entry on the wrong house and were shot dead by the woman who lived there.