The father of a man killed last year while police chased another vehicle has filed a lawsuit against the city of Fort Worth.
Driver Andre Craig, 57, who was not involved in the chase, was struck by a police SUV as it pursued another vehicle last July. Craig was ejected from his car and died on the scene. His death, along with that of 15-year-old Samaria Ezell in an unrelated chase, prompted heightened scrutiny of the Fort Worth Police Department’s handling of vehicle chases.
Uriel Lemon Brown, Craig’s father, filed a lawsuit in the 153rd District Court on behalf of himself and Craig’s estate. In the suit, Brown alleges the police officer who hit Craig, and by extension the city, was negligent and reckless by: driving with disregard for others’ safety; failing to control the speed of the vehicle to avoid colliding with others; failing to keep a proper lookout; failing to maintain the proper attention necessary to avoid the accident; failing to take evasive action; failing to warn Craig; and failing to obey all traffic laws.
Witnesses have stated the police car that hit Craig ran a red light while chasing a different car. The department’s policy states that an officer shouldn’t proceed through an intersection until they can determine if it’s safe to do so. That would mean being able to see that the intersection is clear and there’s no oncoming traffic. If there is a vehicle in the intersection, officers should stop and wait until the path is clear.
Police have not released details about the investigation into that pursuit, including whether the officer violated policy by entering the intersection while there was oncoming traffic. An incident report released to the Fort Worth Report was heavily redacted.
Brown is asking for a jury trial and compensation for damages, past and future pain and suffering, mental anguish, medical expenses, loss of service, loss of companionship, funeral expenses, prejudgment interest and post judgment interest.
“There’s not one dollar amount that can ever compensate this family for their loss,” attorney Daryl Washington, who is representing Brown and Craig’s estate, said. “They lost a major part of the family.”
A spokesperson for the city of Fort Worth said officials are reviewing the lawsuit, and declined to comment on its contents, citing pending litigation. Council members are expected to discuss the lawsuit in executive session Tuesday, according to a posted agenda for the meeting.
For months after Craig’s death, the department declined to release the policy governing pursuits, a move that Craig’s sister Nefertari Mundy called “reprehensible.” Police have since released a partially redacted version of the policy. A lawsuit against the attorney general to keep the remainder private is ongoing.
Washington has not seen the full policy but intends to request it in discovery, he said. From what he has seen, Washington believes it gives officers too much individual discretion.
“That’s concerning to me,” he said. “We need to have a more detailed policy that says, ‘This is when you do it, this is when you don’t do it.’”
This is not the first time the city of Fort Worth has been sued for a death caused by a police chase. In 2018, Gaudencia Meza was killed after a Fort Worth police officer slammed into the back of her vehicle going nearly 100 mph. Meza’s suit eventually made it all the way to the Texas Supreme Court, where it was ultimately dismissed. Documents included as part of that lawsuit included an unredacted version of the chase policy from 2019.
Crashes aren’t uncommon in police chases; a review of annual use-of-force reports by the Fort Worth Report found that nearly a third of all chases since 2017 have resulted in a crash. Clear evidence exists that pursuits are incredibly dangerous in Fort Worth and across Texas, Washington said.
“We have innocent people dying, and one innocent person dying in a pursuit is too many,” he said.
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Emily Wolf is a government accountability reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at emily.wolf@fortworthreport.org or @_wolfemily.
This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.