Fort Worth shooting exposes police training failures
Oct. 16, 2019, 7:54 PM EDT
By Erik Ortiz and Suzanne Gamboa
FORT WORTH, Texas ...
The killing of Atatiana Jefferson, 28, has become the latest flash point in one of Texas' largest cities, where members of the black community want a federal investigation for what they say is a pattern that has persisted for years of excessive force and civil rights violations.
"It's time for somebody else to take control of putting in place the right mechanism to hold the city of Fort Worth and our Fort Worth Police Department accountable," said the Rev. Kyev Tatum, an activist and president of the Tarrant County chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
Tatum and others are calling for a federal consent decree, which would involve the Department of Justice investigating the Fort Worth Police Department and mandating potential reforms, as has happened in cities such as Baltimore and Ferguson, Missouri, where police-involved fatalities led to unrest. The faith leaders planned to send a joint letter Thursday to Attorney General William Barr ...
Samuel Walker, a professor emeritus of criminal justice at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and an expert on policy accountability, said a federal standard is necessary and would go a long way to help departments that are not at the forefront of de-escalation and other policing tactics ...
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/fort-worth-shooting-atatiana-jefferson-exposes-police-training-failures-n1067801
