Fort Worth cops defend actions of officers in black man's shooting

FORT WORTH -- Fort Worth police are defending the actions of officers seen on dashcam video shooting a black man as he’s apparently walking away.

A lawyer for David Collie released a copy of the video showing the July encounter with a Fort Worth officer and a Tarrant County sheriff’s deputy. The officer and deputy were off-duty at the time and working a security detail together at an apartment complex, attorney Nate Washington said Wednesday.

Police were searching for two shirtless black men who they believed had committed a robbery near a gas station, Collie’s lawyer Nate Washington said Wednesday.

Warning: The following video contains violent imagery.

The 33-year-old Collie was walking from work to a friend’s apartment when the officers approached him in their patrol vehicle, Washington said. The video appears to show the Fort Worth officer firing his weapon about 10 seconds after exiting the vehicle and as Collie walked away.

Collie was shot in the back, leaving him paralyzed. Authorities said in a news release they issued at the time that Collie pulled a box cutter from his pocket and pointed it at the officers.

Fort Worth police Sgt. Marc Povero said in a statement that Collie failed to comply with commands to stop and that he appeared to point a silver object at the deputy, consistent with earlier reports by the robbery victim that a suspect flashed a silver handgun. Washington said Collie was not involved in the robbery. A box cutter found nearby didn’t belong to Collie, Washington said.

The shooting occurred late at night and darkness obscures Collie’s actions, but the video seems to show him pointing in another direction as he walks away and it is not clear if there is anything in his hand.

Povero said a department review of the incident had been completed but declined to discuss the outcome. The officer who shot Washington has since returned to duty, he said. Povero declined to comment on the race of the officer.

Samantha Jordan, a spokeswoman for the Tarrant County District Attorney’s office, said all police-involved shootings are submitted directly and without recommendation to the grand jury, where Collie’s case is currently pending.

“We’ve reviewed the evidence,” Jordan said. “Since it is pending, we can’t comment.”

Collie was charged with aggravated assault on a public servant but a grand jury declined to indict him.

The video was obtained about three weeks ago from the Tarrant County district attorney’s office through an open-records request, Washington said. The attorney said he released the video Tuesday at a news conference at Collie’s insistence because Collie was tired of comments made to his mother by people assuming he must have done something wrong.

Washington said Collie wanted to make clear he “didn’t do anything to threaten an officer.”

“It’s gut-wrenching for David and his family to have a 33-year-old man whose life changed forever,” Washington told CBS DFW. “We don’t live in a police state. An officer does not have the right to stop and detain anyone they want to stop and detain.”

Release of the shooting video came just days after the Fort Worth police were in the spotlight over another incident. A cellphone video captured a white Fort Worth officer last week wrestling a black woman to the ground and then arresting her and her two daughters. The officer appeared to be argumentative and escalate the encounter with the woman, who had called police following an encounter between her son and a neighbor. The video has been viewed millions of times.