When police in Fort Worth, Texas, ransacked Nelda Price’s home, an officer instructed her to shake hands – as if she were praying – so she could stop him from having a zip relationship.
“I told him, ‘I’m praying. Because I don’t understand why you’re here, and I don’t know what this is, “Nelda told the Guardian.
On March 11, she and her husband John, both black and in their late 60s, were chatting in the dining room, equipped for bed, when the noise interrupted them. Nelda’s first instinct was to get up and investigate, but Jon thought he heard gunshots, so he pushed her to the floor.
By the time they saw it, the Fort Worth police had already broken through their iron gates and were rushing to the front door, carrying guns. Without elaborating, officers demanded that John and Nelda put their hands up, then take them out for questioning.
In this shocking spectacle that lasted for hours, about 20 or 30 policemen smashed valuables at high prices and immediate vehicles rushed to the block. The elderly couple waited outside in their pajamas and nightgown; After asking several times, Nelda was finally allowed to grab the sweater.
“It was like a nightmare,” he said. “You don’t expect something like that to happen.”
No one will answer questions of value about what is happening, even though many officials show red flags that their colleagues have targeted the wrong people. Police denied Nelda’s request for Jolh’s medicine – until her blood pressure rose so high that they called an ambulance.
Once Nelda and John were admitted inside, they found a search warrant lying on a dining room table that allegedly linked them to methamphetamines and drug trafficking.
“We have no idea why things went so wrong with the Fort Worth Police Department. “All we know is that they did it,” said Wayne Wei, a personal injury trial lawyer representing Nelda in lawsuits against the city.
Fort Worth police have refused to support Van Yee for providing a no-knock search warrant against the prices and have told the Guardian they cannot comment on the pending or current lawsuit.
Unlawful detention, excessive pressure and violations of the constitutional rights to prices, which had a catastrophic incident last March, this claim alleges, representing another instance of a high-profile tragedy that records the racial configuration and bias department. Policing.
The department has faced widespread condemnation over the years for its police brutality against minority communities.
“We certainly argue that this was not a product of an individual’s behavior, but a product of systemic, structural and institutional racism,” Wayne said.
About a decade ago, John Romer, a Fort Worth officer, shot dead disabled father Charles “Ra Ra” Thomas while watching Thomas’ children. Romer was fired only in 2019 after a young black man was found guilty of provocative lying in a separate beating.
In 2015, Officer Courtney Johnson, who later resigned, accidentally shot and wounded a man named Craigeri Amsdams, who carefully fell to his knees as he approached her. The following year, when Jacqueline Craig called Fort Worth police for help because a neighbor had suffocated her young son, Officer William Martin arrested her and her teenage daughters instead.
After Dorshay Morris reported a domestic inconvenience involving her boyfriend in 2017, police chased her to the ground and handcuffed her. Then, last year, Atiana Jefferson became the sixth person to be killed by Fort Worth officers in a matter of months, when Aaron Dean shot his eight-year-old nephew from the window while he was cycling.
Community members believe Fort Worth is doing little or nothing to improve gender relations, racial equality and cultural awareness, according to a 2018 report by the City Council’s Task Force on Race and Culture. African Americans represented 41% of all arrests in 2016 and 2017, despite only 19% of the city’s population, the taskforce found.
Recently, concerns were raised by an expert review panel that Fort Worth police “do not consistently adhere to policies to avoid pressure during encounters with community members”, and the department is not even enforcing that security, either.
“They act this way like the wild, wild west, and there are no rules,” said Pamela Young, a community organizer with the bottom organization United Fort Worth. “There is no consistent liability.”
Police inadvertently called Price’s house, surrounded by antiques John had collected, and other indications that he was inside the common home of two senior citizens. They still hit shoes and suits like shoes, and not kitchen Lda and John wrecked in new kitchen cabinets, to survive for years.
“I felt like I was really violated,” Nelda said.
After this incident, she was very nervous and upset to work until the days when John calmed down and stopped working like himself. She told him she was fine, but after half a century of marriage, she knew better. John died in May for unknown reasons.
“He was my bodyguard,” Nelda said. “He took care of us.”
She still has no idea why her home was attacked, and now alone, she is provoked by something as innocent as a police SUV moving around a police block.
“What we really, really want is that the city is keeping a very close eye on what happened here, and is ready to start a conversation with Nelda, listen to her story and use this event as a training example,” Van Way said. . “Figure out where their systems are broken and how to fix them.”
