A new team will proactively and regularly audit the Fort Worth Police Department to ensure legal, moral and ethical policing standards, Chief Eddie García announced Tuesday.
Called a Constitutional Policing Unit, the initiative mirrors one García launched in 2023 while leading Dallas’ police force to provide internal oversight and accountability. The Fort Worth unit’s creation marks the first major change to the department since García became chief in September.
“This is about strengthening trust and accountability within the Fort Worth Police Department and what we’re currently doing,” García told City Council’s public safety committee Dec. 2. “We want to be leaders in law enforcement, not just locally, but nationally. We as a police department want to take a proactive approach into our practices and our policies.”
The Constitutional Policing Unit will include three staffers, at least at first: a civilian who will serve as director; a police lieutenant to serve as liaison with the department; and a part-time, contracted criminologist in residence. García said he expects to hire the civilian director in January.
The unit will inspect police policies, training, operations and internal controls through “structured reviews”; track trends with monthly and quarterly data assessments; and develop and implement corrective action plans.
“You don’t just want oversight from the outside,” Alex del Carmen, who will serve as the unit’s criminologist, told the committee. “You want to make sure that the organization itself is measuring the work that it’s doing and making sure that it is proactive, having the best policies and the research about what they’re doing.”
The unit will work with the city-staffed Office of the Police Oversight Monitor, or OPOM, created in 2020 to hold the department accountable to residents. While the oversight monitor reports to City Manager Jay Chapa, the new unit will report directly to García, the police chief said.
The monitor provides a reactive response to the community’s law enforcement needs and police concerns, but the Constitutional Policing Unit will provide a proactive, internal approach, OPOM director Bonycle Sokunbi said.
“You’re now going to have a police department that can look you in the face and say, ‘We know what we’re doing, and we’re doing it well,’” Sokunbi told reporters at a press conference Tuesday.
The unit will certify that police are compliant with department policies and address guidelines that need adjustment, she added.
“We are doing that versus saying, ‘It’s going well because we haven’t heard anything bad yet,’” she said.
García, Sokunbi and Carmen emphasized that the proactive approach is intended to reduce operational, legal and reputational risks. It will help keep Fort Worth up to par with other departments across the country in implementing best practices, policies and technology, they said.
“This is the direction that any progressive police department should be headed in,” Sokunbi said.
The office’s launch comes about two and a half months into García’s tenure.
Before his hire, as the city searched for a new police chief, police accountability was a priority of many city stakeholders, especially when it came to officers’ interactions with communities of color.
Top of mind for some were high-profile Fort Worth police encounters throughout the 2010s, as well as concern over how law enforcement interacts with Latino communities given President Donald Trump’s stepped up efforts to deport undocumented immigrants.
Community pushes for citizen-led oversight have continued since 2018, when such a board was recommended by the city’s Race and Culture Task Force. That 25-member task force formed to rebuild trust between communities of color and police after the mistreatment of Jacqueline Craig in 2016.
A citizen-led oversight board’s creation was struck down by a City Council vote in 2022 — a decision supported by García’s predecessor, Neil Noakes.
When García was hired, he said he was open to the creation of such a board but wanted to first speak with Sokunbi before issuing his own opinion.
Cecilia Lenzen and Drew Shaw are government accountability reporters for the Fort Worth Report. Contact them at cecilia.lenzen@fortworthreport.org and drew.shaw@fortworthreport.org.
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