Police group calls firing of Texas officer a ‘knee-jerk reaction’

A state group representing fired Arlington police officer Brad Miller said Police Chief Will Johnson overreacted and made a “knee-jerk” decision when he terminated the rookie.

“It’s amazing that nobody, including Chief Johnson, seems to care about the science,” said Kevin Lawrence, director of the Texas Municipal Police Association, which has hired a Dallas attorney to represent Miller. “I’m not saying that the officer didn’t do anything wrong, because I don’t know. It’s another knee-jerk reaction based on public pressure.”

Others supporting Miller shared similar sentiments.

Johnson announced Tuesday that he fired Miller, 49, for exercising poor judgment and putting other officers in danger during a burglary call at a dealership that led to the death of 19-year-old suspect Christian Taylor.

Johnson said he has “serious concerns” about Miller’s decision to use deadly force.

Taylor was killed as officers responded at the Classic Buick GMC dealership on the Interstate 20 service road east of Collins Street. Security video shows Taylor vandalizing a vehicle in the parking lot, and police have said that he later crashed a Jeep Cherokee through the glass front of the showroom.

With Taylor roaming freely in the showroom, Miller failed to communicate with other officers, including his field training officer, about his intention to enter the building and pursue the burglar, Johnson said.

Miller told investigators that after he entered the building, Taylor approached him screaming. Miller said he was not aware that his training officer, Cpl. Dale Wiggins, was behind him and was afraid that Taylor would overpower him, Johnson said.

There was no physical contact between Taylor and the two officers, Johnson said.

Miller fired four shots and Wiggins fired his Taser.

Taylor died of gunshots in his neck, chest and abdomen, according to the Tarrant County medical examiner’s office. Authorities are awaiting a toxicology report.

Johnson said Miller “exercised poor judgment” that led to “cascading consequences.”

Firing ‘is an insult’

Miller joined the police force in September. Although he graduated from the police academy and was a fully licensed officer, he was still finishing a 16-week field-training program. Miller cannot appeal the termination because he was on probation, according to police.

Miller’s attorney, John Snider of Dallas, said Johnson cowed to public pressure in firing the rookie.

“Chief Johnson used 20/20 hindsight to protect his job and appease anti-police activists,” Snider said in an email. “Officer Miller made decisions in the heat of a violent confrontation to save his and other officers’ lives. A four-day ‘investigation’ and media theatrics are not even close to due process.

“This decision, while politically expedient for Chief Johnson, is an insult to the rank and file officers who put their lives on the line every day.”

In a statement, the Arlington Municipal Patrolman’s Association said it supports “Miller’s right to be judged fairly and completely on facts instead of a snapshot developed in only days,” and it expressed sympathy for Taylor’s family.

Lawrence said he is concerned about the message that Johnson is sending to those considering a career in law enforcement.

“What we’re doing is creating an environment where nobody will want to be a police officer, and we’ll wind up with every kind of people we don’t want to be police,” Lawrence said.

Johnson said the results of a criminal investigation will be turned over to the Tarrant County district attorney’s office, which could submit the case to a grand jury.

The shooting has emerged as a national story and came two days before the one-year anniversary of the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, who was black, by a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo. The 18-year-old’s death galvanized the “Black Lives Matter” movement.

The death of Taylor, who was black, has raised some of the same questions as other recent police shootings with unarmed suspects. Miller is white.

At a news conference Saturday, Johnson said that “this incident has not occurred in isolation. But rather it has occurred while our nation has been wrestling with the topics of social injustice, inequities, racism and police misconduct.”

“We recognize the importance of these topics,” Johnson said.

A 2014 graduate of Mansfield Summit High School, Taylor was expected to compete to be the starting defensive back at Angelo State University, an NCAA Division II school in San Angelo.

ASU begins practice Thursday, and the workouts have been closed to the media until Monday, according to the San Angelo Standard-Times.

‘Uptick in confrontations’

The heightened awareness of officer-involved shootings began a year ago with Brown’s death. But the issue has remained in the news because of other cases, including one in Euless in which a Grapevine officer fatally shot an unarmed Mexican national during a traffic stop.

A Tarrant County grand jury declined to indict the officer.

Tim Ryle, director of the Austin-based Texas Police Association, said he has noticed an “uptick in confrontations with police.”

A recent Washington Post analysis found that 385 people have been shot to death by police the first five months of this year.

Ryle said some police shootings can be placed in two categories: “mistakes of the mind and mistakes of the heart.”

“If those mistakes are of the heart, that means you don’t believe in the system; you don’t believe in our democracy,” he said. “If you don’t believe that in your heart, then you have no place in American law enforcement today.”

He said officers must work with those in the community, and vice versa.

“It’s all about working through it, communicating better,” said Ryle, whose 5,000-member association advocates for law enforcement professionals but does not provide legal representation.

“We come from the community, and we are the community. We just have a job that the community wants us to do. … But it’s a collaboration. That means it’s not OK to fight with the police. There is an appropriate way to hold the police accountable.”

Staff writer Mitch Mitchell contributed to this report.

This story was originally published August 12, 2015 at 10:29 PM with the headline "Police group calls firing of Texas officer a ‘knee-jerk reaction’."