New details are emerging in the case of a freeway altercation that led to an off-duty officer shooting earlier this month.
Fort Worth Police Officer William Martin was traveling in his personal vehicle, a silver sedan, along I-35W on September 3 when he called 911 to report a hit-and-run incident. He told the dispatcher that he was following a truck that had tried to ram his vehicle and that he had fired shots at the other driver.
The driver of the red Ford truck, identified as Samuel Christopher, was struck multiple times and was treated at the hospital for non-life-threatening injuries. Officer Martin was placed on restricted duty pending the outcome of the investigation into the shooting incident.
On September 20, the Fort Worth Police Department said in a written statement that the investigation had determined that “probable cause existed for the offense of Aggravated Assault Deadly Weapon.” Martin was arrested and booked into the Tarrant County Jail but immediately posted bond and was released.
According to the arrest warrant released on Monday, both vehicles stopped after a collision on the freeway between Morningside Drive and Bellvue Drive, and that is when Martin exited his vehicle and fired his gun three times. Both vehicles were then later stopped on the frontage road by police.
Christopher told police that he was not aware of a collision and thought he was being followed by the person in the sedan, per the affidavit.
In a five-page statement released by his lawyer, Martin claimed that the driver of the truck had veered into his lane and was driving erratically, posing a danger to other drivers. He claimed that the driver of the vehicle looked straight at him and rammed his vehicle when they stopped on the side of the freeway, thus prompting Martin to shoot at him.
Martin’s attorney said his client’s arrest was “a rush to judgment” by the police department, alleging that investigators either accepted or ignored evidence to fit their conclusion.
Fort Worth Council Member Chris Nettles said Martin’s actions were inappropriate for an off-duty officer and that Martin should have let police handle the incident rather than taking matters into his own hands, as NBC 5 DFW reported.
On Tuesday afternoon, an attorney representing Christopher gave a statement relaying his client’s narrative of the events that led to the shooting, which is markedly different from Martin’s version of the incident.
Christopher claims that he was driving on I-35 W when Martin cut in front of him, cutting him off. Martin then got out of his car wielding a gun. Christopher did not know at the time that the driver of the sedan was an off-duty police officer.
Christopher said he was in fear for his life, so he turned his truck to the right to drive away, and that is when Martin fired his weapon at him, striking him on the left side three times. One of the bullets narrowly missed his spine.
Investigators interviewed 14 witnesses who corroborated Christopher’s version of the incident, but none of them saw the initial crash that Martin claims started the incident. They saw Martin chasing Christopher and assumed that it was a road rage incident, according to the police report.
The witnesses said they saw Martin pull his vehicle in front of Christopher’s truck and then stop suddenly, causing Christopher to crash into the sedan. None of the witnesses thought that Martin was in danger of being run over by Christopher’s truck.
Martin was also involved in a high-profile incident in 2016 when he was accused of using excessive force in the arrest of a black woman, Jacqueline Craig, and her two teenage daughters. Craig had called the police for help after a white male neighbor allegedly choked her son. Craig later filed a civil rights lawsuit against the city and agreed to a $150,000 settlement, but a 3-federal judge panel cleared Martin of any wrongdoing in the incident.
Following this most recent incident, civil rights leaders have called for Martin to be fired from the police force.
“He does not hold the temperament to be a police officer,”said Kyev Tatum, president of the Minister Justice Coalition, per Fox 4 KDFW. “He was an off-duty officer who decided to escalate the situation by running after the person who was in the hit-and-run and turned it from a hit-and-run to a road rage.”
“Now that they arrested him, we are demanding that this man is fired from this job,” said Donnell Ballard, founder of the nonprofit United My Justice, per NBC 5. “Even though you was an off-duty officer, you had no right to start shooting.”
“The Fort Worth Police Department is filled with officers who do the job right every day. Our department will continue to hold employees accountable who do not meet the standards expected of a Fort Worth police officer, and in doing so, we will continue to be transparent and open with our community,” FWPD said in the written statement.