Video footage released April 19 by Fort Worth police shows 20-year-old Brandon Zapata appeared to be in severe distress and asking for help from security personnel at La Gran Plaza before a struggle that ended in his death.
The April 11 incident at the south Fort Worth shopping center was captured on video from multiple angles. The Star-Telegram reached out to three experts in the field of policing to give their impressions of the video footage, and one responded.
“Police have become the panacea for all social problems, and maybe they’re not the best all-in-one tool to deal with everything,” said Johnny Nhan, a criminal justice professor at TCU who is also a reserve officer with the Fort Worth Police Department.
Nhan said the officer who initially responded did not appear to act with “any type of maliciousness.” It appeared from the video that he was following the protocol Fort Worth police officers use when dealing with someone who might be experiencing a mental health crisis, Nhan said.
Zapata’s family has said that his only known medical condition was asthma, and they believe his behavior may have reflected his struggles to breathe during an asthma attack. Family members have said they believe that police and security used excessive force.
A witness at La Gran Plaza said Zapata came in yelling and saying he couldn’t breathe. He told a female security guard near the entrance that he needed help. Video shows she appeared to hand him a water bottle.
The security guard called someone on her radio and an off-duty Fort Worth police officer employed by La Gran Plaza responded. Once the officer arrived, Zapata didn’t seem to repeat anything about not being able to breathe, according to the witness. In the video, Zapata is stumbling around and pulling his pants down.
Nhan said the officer could have judged from his observations that Zapata might be having some type of mental health crisis and dealt with him accordingly.
The protocol for dealing with someone experiencing mental health issues is to handcuff them so they won’t hurt themselves or someone else, Nhan said. It’s difficult to handcuff a person alone, so officers usually have to wait until more officers arrive to help, he said.
The handcuffs do not mean the person is under arrest, Nhan said. They are intended to “take that person’s arms out of the equation.”
Once the person is handcuffed, officers are supposed to wait for an ambulance to arrive so paramedics can determine what kind of help the individual needs, Nhan said. If a physical issue needs to be addressed, the person is taken to a hospital. If it seems to be a purely mental issue, an officer takes the person to the Psychiatric Emergency Center at John Peter Smith Hospital.
The video shows that the off-duty officer handcuffed Zapata with help from another security guard and a bystander, and at one point the officer’s knee was on Zapata’s back. Shortly after being handcuffed while lying face-down on the floor, Zapata became unresponsive.
Nhan said it appeared from the video that the officer tried life-saving measures immediately when he noticed Zapata was not moving. Unfortunately, he said, police officers have limited medical training and the supplies in their first-aid kit are intended to treat gunshot or stab wounds and drug overdoses.
“If there’s something underlying such as asthma, I mean, they’re just not the right people to diagnose it and treat it,” Nhan said.
Other officers arrived around that time, and video shows they performed CPR and gave Zapata a Narcan injection. An officer is heard saying on the video that Zapata mentioned smoking something, and according to police, officers feared he might be overdosing. Officers only receive a one-time training on how to administer Narcan, according to Nhan.
Nhan said he didn’t detect the officer using an increasing amount of force as he struggled to handcuff Zapata. Even when Zapata seemed to be resisting, the officer didn’t use a Taser or pepper spray, which signals he was trying to restrain him in handcuffs so the ambulance could come and check him out, according to Nhan.
Police in North Texas are trained to cuff the hands behind the back, Nhan said. He doesn’t think there is a Fort Worth police policy against putting a knee on someone’s back as a way to get them handcuffed quickly.
Nhan confirmed that off-duty Fort Worth police officers have to abide by the same rules as when they are in uniform.
In addition to off-duty police, La Gran Plaza employs security officers. The video shows the security officer trying to help the police officer, but in a more limited way. Nhan said rules for security officers depend on the company they are employed by. It is a gray area, he said, and “the rules aren’t written in stone like they are for police.”
A bystander also helped subdue Zapata, according to witness testimony and some moments on the video. Nhan said a police officer in the state of Texas can order a civilian bystander to help them, but it’s not clear if that is what happened in this situation.
According to Nhan, the incident at La Gran Plaza highlights the fact that police are first and foremost crime fighters. They are not fundamentally equipped to deal with people in a mental health or medical crisis.
The Fort Worth Police Department has a Crisis Intervention Team composed of specially trained officers and mental health professionals, but police told Zapata’s family the CIT was not called.
Nhan said the program is still growing and he doesn’t know if the CIT are always on call.
“When something’s unfolding like this quickly, and you’re trying to assemble that, I can see it taking a long time,” he said.
Nhan said it’s possible the officer did trigger a preexisting condition in Zapata, but you can’t know that with certainty from the video. At the same time, Nhan said it’s not fair to say the police had nothing to do with Zapata’s death.
“It’s just a tragic situation,” he said.
According to Nhan, police started to promote themselves in the 1960s and 1970s as trained professionals who were available to help with everything. Around the same time mental health facilities were being closed due to poor conditions. Instead of improving the mental health system, Nhan said, politicians called for more money to be poured into the criminal justice system.
“This is really the police being a victim of their own success,” he said. “Because if you look at police history, at one point they were like, ‘Hey, we want to be the solution to everything.’”
If someone is having a physical or mental breakdown, Nhan said the mere presence of an armed officer, even when they are trying to help, could make the situation worse.
Results of an autopsy and toxicology tests are pending to determine Zapata’s cause of death.