A suburban Dallas community is still pondering the arrest and assault by two of its police officers against a North Texas man and his son last summer that led to a now-settled federal lawsuit and a promise by city leaders to make sure such encounters will not happen again.
The alleged racial profiling incident that started with a minor traffic infraction and quickly escalated into violence is over, Keller Mayor Armin Mizani said in a Feb. 1 Twitter post.
"While this chapter is coming to a close, the conversations and policy changes that it has inspired will continue to move us forward as a department, a city and a community," Keller Mayor Armin Mizani said in a Feb. 1 Twitter post. "This council and our police department led by Chief [Brad] Fortune remain committed to ensuring encounters like these never happen again, and we will continue working tirelessly to provide every member of our community with a sense of safety and security that reflects Keller’s values."
Body cam footage of Marco Puente after being pepper sprayed during his arrest last summer
| Image obtained by Lone Star Standard
Keller is about 30 miles northwest of Dallas.
The city's soul searching began with the widely reported arrest of then 22-year-old Dillon Puente and his father, Marco Puente, in mid-August. The younger Puente, pulled over by then-Keller Police Sgt. Blake Shimanek, was briefly jailed on charges of making an improper wide right turn.
The elder Puente, who had been in a separate car, was arrested after he stood across the street and used his cellphone to record his son's arrest.
Body cam footage from the arrest, much - if not all - of it posted to YouTube, shows excessive force and the use of pepper spray.
At one point, Shimanek put the elder Puente into a headlock and then pepper-sprayed him. Officer Ankit Tomer, who had been called in for backup, removed Marco Puente’s sunglasses so he could be pepper sprayed a second time.
The elder Puente repeatedly asked for the irritant to be wiped from his eyes and reported he was having trouble breathing, at one point screaming, "I'm begging you man, please" but he was ignored.
Marco Puente was charged with resisting arrest and in interfering with public duties. He was released that night and the charges against him were later dropped. His son ended up released and paying a fine.
An internal affairs investigation against Shimanek officially started the following month. Fortune, who became Keller's police chief the previous March, admitted there was no evidence supporting the charges against the elder Puente.
Shimanek was demoted and taken off patrol. Tomer has not been disciplined and still remains an active Keller police officer, according to information on the city's website.
The elder Puente filed a federal lawsuit over the incident in December.
Later that same month, the Texas justice advocacy blog Grits For Breakfast, written by Scott Henson of Just Liberty, decried Keller police's use of "a Class C arrest over a 'wide right turn' to search Dillon Puente's vehicle when he refused consent, then used excessive force against his father, Marco, in retaliation for recording the incident." The charge against Marco Puente had been "phony," the blog post said.
The incident and resulting scandal showcases need for legislative reform restricting arrests for fine-only offences, the blog post said, pointing to the 2017 Sandra Bland Act. That legislation, signed by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in June 2017, is named for a woman found dead in Waller County Jail following her traffic arrest. The act mandates that county jails send people suffering mental health and substance abuse issues to treatment and requires that all jail deaths be investigated.
"At one time police claimed these were rare occurrences and officers were only arresting dangerous people," Grits for Breakfast said in the blog post. "Now, thanks to the Sandra Bland Act passed in 2017, we know that's not true. Today law enforcement annually reports data on how many people are arrested for Class C misdemeanors to the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement."
In separate statements widely reported early last month, then newly elected Mayor Mizani called the incident "isolated" but said he and city council couldn't discipline the officers. Fortune added that the incident "caused great disappointment and regret" within the Keller Police Department.
"As your chief of police, I repeat that I'm sorry this incident occurred on my watch," Fortune said. "It should have never happened."
During a Jan. 21 town hall meeting, Fortune talked about changes in the department's standards, saying that a new discipline matrix was being created.
"Officers are given a tremendous amount of authority, power, latitude," Keller said. "Just because the law says you're able to do this, is it right to do this? That's on the department to instill the culture and the training in each of their officers about what the expectations are."
The following Sunday (Jan. 24), the city of Keller announced a $200,000 settlement in the elder Puente's lawsuit, saying it was "pleased" with the settlement.
Marco Puente is satisfied with the settlement, his attorney Scott H. Palmer said.
"A quick result is obviously worth it to him, to move on and get this past him," Palmer told The New York Times, adding that the lawsuit "accomplished his goals of holding them accountable and shedding a spotlight on police brutality."
An online petition demanding Shimanek "and his colleague" be fired and charged "for the abuse of the Puente family" currently has more than 51,600 signatures.
Shimanek's resignation was announced in a Twitter post by the Keller Police Department earlier this month.
