Before coming to Fort Worth, Fitzgerald served as the police chief in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and Missouri City, Texas.Deputy Chief Neil Noakes was one of two internal candidates for the job of Fort Worth police chief. The police chief was welcome to the podium with applause from the crowd.Ĭooke says Mayor Price was not involved in the decision to fire Fitzgerald, but Price did release a statement this afternoon stating she supports the city manager’s decision.įitzgerald's attorney is sending a formal letter to the city manager for an administrative appeal of his firing.Ĭooke says the city will work within the coming months to hire a new police chief.įitzgerald had been with Fort Worth PD since Oct. The police chief most recently made an appearance alongside Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price on Sunday during a press conference about Salem Sabatka, the 8-year-old who was kidnapped but found safe over the weekend. "God as our witness, Fort Worth is going to suffer because Chief Fitzgerald is not our police chief,” Tatum said. Minister and activist Kyev Tatum is a Fitzgerald supporter and is less optimistic. “And our officers will continue to do their jobs.” "I know that there's been controversy swirling in the recent weeks and recent months,” Ramirez said. "And because he reported them, the city then started looking for a reason to silence the man and get rid of him,” Kennedy said.Įd Kraus has been named the interim Fort Worth police chief.įort Worth Police Association President Manny Ramirez says police are saddened to lose Fitzgerald but are looking forward to working with Kraus. It gives police access to fingerprints, DNA, criminal records and more.Īttorney Stephen Kennedy says Fitzgerald was worried the FBI would revoke the department's access to the system. Through his attorney, Fitzgerald claims the only reason he was fired was because of a memo he sent to city leaders in December raising concerns that the city is in violation of federal regulations that allow the city access to the FBI's criminal justice information system. Nonetheless, there was an incident and it brings again in to question judgment in leadership.” and the extent of how heated the incident or confrontation was or wasn’t. “There are certainly several versions of what happened in Washington, D.C.
As a culmination of items? Yes,” Cooke said. “I’m sure one of the questions is, ‘Is this action today based on the recent incident in Washington D.C.?’ As an isolated incident? No. He said it was a decision city officials made at the end of last week. and says that was the breaking point in their decision to fire the chief. The city manager said on Monday he did his due diligence in investigating that incident between CLEAT and Fitzgerald in D.C. CLEAT stated that “instead of joining his local union, which is constitutionally required, the chief attempted to bypass regular protocol and joined the statewide organization by bank draft.” More recently, The Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas removed Fitzgerald as a member ten days ago. Fitzgerald ended up pulling himself out of the running for the job, stating he withdrew himself after receiving positive support from the Fort Worth community. The NAACP then raised concerns over his fitness for the job in a letter to the Baltimore City Council. At the time, the Baltimore Sun Newspaper said it found Fitzgerald overstated some of his accomplishments in Fort Worth and in his previous job in Pennsylvania.
He said he had been working with Fitzgerald on some issues with his leadership since he was flirting with the idea of taking a job as the Baltimore Police Department Commissioner in the fall.įitzgerald had been tapped back in November as the lone finalist for the job. Cooke explained there were several issues that raised questions about the chief's judgment.
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