The Fort Worth woman who Mayor Mattie Parker said was involved in leaving a casket outside the mayor’s home three years ago posted on social media about seeking to borrow one just days before the incident, according to police reports.
However, police say it is unlikely the woman, Patrice Jones, was at the scene of the December 2022 incident.
On Thursday, Jones said she made a post about a casket but did not recall why, noting that a lot was happening in the city three years ago. She said she did not seek a casket to leave at Parker’s home.
In a post dated Dec. 3, 2022, Jones wrote, “Any funeral home willing to allow use of a casket for tomorrow? We also need some buses from some churches,” according to police records released to the Fort Worth Report late Oct. 15.
One week after Jones’ post, an empty casket was left outside Parker’s home, according to a 2022 Fort Worth Police Department report detailing the incident. After that, Jones shared a Facebook post from another activist that defended the incident as a protest, according to the report.
“Clearly, (police) didn’t find those posts to be enough evidence to even question me on this incident, nor did they find enough evidence to even have me listed as a suspect,” Jones said Thursday.
The 2022 incident resurfaced recently after a heated City Council meeting on Sept. 30 when Parker said, “Patrice, I still have your casket,” after Jones warned limiting public comment at meetings could force residents to find other ways to address council members and make them “uncomfortable” in their “comfortable spaces.”
After that meeting, Jones and community activists demanded Parker apologize for the comment, which they characterized as threatening.
Parker later said in a statement she felt provoked by Jones' words, which she perceived as a threat to her and the council. The mayor wanted Jones to know she was aware of the activist’s involvement in the casket incident, she said.
Parker’s spokesperson Kinsey Clemmer said Thursday that the mayor declined to comment about the police reports.
After her State of the City address on Oct. 16, reporters asked Parker if she regretted making the casket comment.
“I don’t right now,” Parker replied. “I regret anything that puts a negative light on the city of Fort Worth, right? And so my job as mayor is to tell positive stories and focus on what really matters.”
In 2022, the casket was left outside Parker’s home at the time a Fort Worth police officer was on trial for the fatal shooting of Atatiana Jefferson in 2019.
Jefferson’s name and others killed by police were written on the casket along with a “set of red concentric circles with a red cross centered on the circles,” appearing to resemble the cross-hairs of a weapon scope on a target, the police report states.
Parker said earlier this month she chose in 2022 not to press charges or move a police investigation forward in an attempt to “allow the city to heal in what was a very difficult time — the murder trial for Atatiana Jefferson.”
Home security footage of the incident shows two people wearing face coverings jump out of a pickup truck and dump the casket in Parker’s front yard before leaving in the truck, according to the police report.
“None of the persons involved in dropping the caskets have the same physical features as Jones,” a supplemental police document dated Dec. 16, 2022, states. “This makes it virtually impossible to say she committed the offense necessary for a search warrant or any other warrant.”
In phone interviews Wednesday and Thursday, Jones reiterated her previous position that the mayor slandered her character by insinuating she was involved with the casket dumping. She said that, although she didn’t remember why she posted about asking for a casket or buses, many community activities were happening as the trial went on and noted she wrote then about needing the items the following day.
The Fort Worth Report obtained the police report Oct. 15 after Parker said earlier this month that it contained evidence detailing Jones’ involvement in the incident. She also said there were “eyewitness accounts to this fact.”
While the report notes witnesses, it does not detail anyone identifying Jones.
Jones said she perceived Parker’s Sept. 30 remark as a “terroristic threat” and filed a report with the police Oct. 1.
Police decided Parker’s comment was not a threat, according to a copy of Jones’ police report reviewed by the Fort Worth Report. The case was closed Oct. 2.
Jones is the founder of Southside Community Garden, an initiative that builds gardens for residents living in the ZIP code 76104. She has been an outspoken critic of police violence and advocate for a citizen-led Fort Worth police oversight board.
One month before the casket was left in Parker’s yard, City Council members voted 5-4 against the creation of such a board.
Two days after the casket was dumped in 2022, Jones shared a Facebook post about how Black residents had tried to air grievances the “right way” by advocating at City Hall and town hall meetings, according to the police report.
“So, it’s important to remember the reason activists felt they had to take their concerns to (Parker’s) door step is because working within the system didn’t work,” the post read, according to the police report.
Officers drove to several funeral homes to try to identify the pickup truck seen in security footage but did not find it, the report states.
Had the occupants of the pickup truck been identified, they could have been charged with a Class B misdemeanor for “illegal dumping” of the 93.4-pound coffin, according to the police report. Such misdemeanors are punishable by a fine not to exceed $2,000, confinement in jail for a term not to exceed 180 days, or both, according to the Texas Penal Code.
In August of last year, officers followed up on a tip and spoke to two people connected to a local funeral home who said they did not have knowledge of or involvement in the casket incident, according to the police report.
A woman identified in the report as one of the co-owners of the funeral home told police she was out “junking” and happened to be in the area the day of the incident. She told police she saw four to six people put the casket in the street, according to the report.
Following that interview, officers noted the offense was past the statute of limitations.
When reached for comment about details in the report, a representative of the funeral home named in the police report as an owner told the Fort Worth Report he knew nothing about the incident or the police investigation. The woman interviewed by police last year could not be reached.
Government accountability reporter Drew Shaw contributed reporting.
Cecilia Lenzen is a government accountability reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at cecilia.lenzen@fortworthreport.org.
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