Texas Supreme Court ruling in Fort Worth officers’ suit ‘protects corrupt cops,’ attorney says

A Texas Supreme Court decision — which involves the Whistleblower Act and two Fort Worth police officers — “protects corrupt cops,” the attorney for the officers said this week.

Capt. Abdul Pridgen and Capt. Vance Keyes have been in a legal fight with the city of Fort Worth since 2017, when they sued the city over what they say was retaliation for reporting a colleague’s illegal conduct. Keyes and Pridgen were part of the internal affairs investigation into a officer whose arrest of Jacqueline Craig and her daughter in 2016 gained national attention when video of the arrests went viral.

Craig sued the city in 2017 and, on Set. 23, the city agreed to pay Craig $150,000 pending City Council approval.

But for Pridgen and Keyes, the legal battle is still not over. The Texas Supreme Court heard arguments in January, and in May seven of the nine judges ruled in favor of the city. Pridgen and Keyes filed a motion for a rehearing in August.

The officers, who were demoted at the Fort Worth Police Department in 2017, say they should have been protected from retaliation for their reports about their colleague under the Whistleblower Act. In May, the Texas Supreme Court ruled the act does not apply in their case, reversing a lower court’s decision and narrowing the legal scope of the Whistleblower Act, the officers’ attorney says.

The officers’ attorney, Jason Smith, said the ruling is a narrow interpretation of the law, which poses potential legal dangers to officers who want to report misconduct in police departments. The city also avoided going to trial over the case, which Smith said keeps the city from being held accountable for its handling of the Craig family’s arrest.

“The Court missed the opportunity to follow its own precedent and interpret the Whistleblower Act broadly to protect good cops who take the brave steps of reporting the crimes of bad cops,” Smith said.

In response to the ruling, a city spokeswoman said in a statement that the city “is happy that the Texas Supreme Court agreed with the City’s argument that the Plaintiffs were not whistleblowers and dismissed the case.”

Capt. Abdul Pridgen (left), a former assistant chief, and Capt. Vance Keyes, a former deputy chief, stand outside the Texas Supreme Court in Austin earlier this year. The Fort Worth officers were demoted after an investigation into a leaked video and information about the arrest of Jacqueline Craig and her daughter in Fort Worth in 2016. The men filed a suit after their demotion, saying the city violated the Whistleblower Act by retaliating against them for reporting information about the arrest investigation to former Police Chief Joel Fitzgerald.
Jason Smith Provided

Case history

In December 2016, Jacqueline Craig called Fort Worth police to report her son was being choked by a neighbor. Fort Worth Officer William Martin responded to the scene, but instead of speaking to the neighbor, he argued with Craig, threw her 15-year-old daughter to the ground and arrested Craig and her 19-year-old daughter. As punishment, Martin was suspended for 10 days.

After Martin’s arrest of the Craig family, Pridgen, then an assistant chief, and Keyes, then a deputy chief, reviewed the body-camera footage and Martin’s arrest affidavit for Craig as part of the internal affairs investigation. They reported to then-Police Chief Joel Fitzgerald that Martin had used excessive force and racial motivations in the arrests, misstated what happened in the Craigs’ arrest report and recommended that Martin should be fired.

According to the officers’ lawsuit, Fitzgerald reacted with hostility toward Keyes and Pridgen when they reported the information. Fitzgerald subsequently demoted Pridgen and Keyes in May 2017.

The city contends the officers were “properly demoted” because the chief believed they leaked confidential bodycam video of the arrests.

However, the subsequent legal fight was not specifically over the leaked video — an appeals court already ruled in 2020 that the city did not have enough evidence to prove whether the officers actually leaked the footage.

Instead, the legal fight became centered around the officers’ demand for a trial and the city’s motion to stop that from happening. If the Whistleblower Act had applied in the case, the case could have gone to a jury trial. Because it does not apply, the city can claim immunity in the case and demand summary judgment, meaning the case does not go to a jury.

“The Court’s ruling deprived the public the opportunity to find out in open court how the City swept racist, criminal conduct of a police officer against a Black family under the rug,” Smith said.

In regards to Smith’s allegations, Gutt emphasized the city reached a settlement with Craig and and that the officer who arrested Craig and her daughter received suspension without pay for his misconduct and numerous city officials stated publicly that his conduct was inappropriate.

Does that Whistleblower Act apply?

Pridgen and Keyes argued their reports to Fitzgerald about Martin’s illegal conduct fall under the Whistleblower Act. The city disagrees. The subsequent briefing from the Texas Supreme Court analyzed what the Whistleblower Act does and does not protect.

According to state law, a state or local entity — such as a police department — cannot retaliate against an employee who “in good faith reports a violation of law by the employing governmental entity or another public employee to an appropriate law enforcement authority.”

The court’s ruling says the Whistleblower Act did not apply in the officers’ case because they did not file “a good faith report of a violation of law.”

Interestingly, the court notes in a footnote that the ruling does make any judgment about the officers’ intentions or decision to report their recommendation to Fitzgerald.

“We merely conclude that Respondents’ communications are not the type the Act protect,” the ruling says.

According to the court’s brief, a qualifying whistleblower report must provide information — as opposed to “mere opinions or conclusions” — and the report must disclose “fact previously unknown.” The ruling says the information was available to Fitzgerald and Pridgen and Keyes knew he was aware of it.

The court found that Pridgen and Keyes’ merely expressed their opinion to Fitzgerald about Martin, which would not qualify as a factual report.

However, the motion for a rehearing says that Keyes and Pridgen did report new information about Martin’s illegal conduct. They were the only ones to convey to Fitzgerald that Martin committed perjury in his arrest report, the motion says, and they were the only officers who insisted that the police department pursue criminal charges against Martin.

Martin did not face criminal charges.

The motion for a rehearing also argues the Texas Supreme Court’s legal interpretation of the Whistleblower Act is too narrow. For example, the brief says, the ruling says the law does not apply to information that an agency might already have. In that case, the brief says, “every governmental entity would thwart every whistleblower case” by saying the report was about some topic that the agency already has information about.

“We hope the Court will follow its own precedent on rehearing and rule for the good cops who sought to charge a bad cop with a crime,” Smith said.

Justice Jeffrey Boyd dissented from the ruling, saying that he believes the officers submitted enough evidence to avoid summary judgment and go to a jury trial. Justice James Blacklock concurred with the court’s decision, meaning he mostly agreed with the conclusions but did not fully agree.