A police officer in Fort Worth was taken off patrol Monday after video surfaced showing him pepper-spraying passing bikers from the side of the road. WFAA reports that a force spokesman admitted “pepper-spraying drivers is not a department-endorsed tactic” and confirmed an investigation was underway.
News 8 spoke Monday to Jack Kinney, the man who recorded the video with his helmet camera, and Chase Stone, who edited the video and posted it to Facebook. They say a group of about 200 motorcyclists were traveling up northbound U.S. 287 in Fort Worth Sunday afternoon when a Fort Worth police officer pulled over one of the motorcycle group’s “safety vehicles,” which is a vehicle that follows behind bikers in case of an incident.
In the edited video, which slows down and zooms in at one point, so viewers can see more clearly, the officer appears to spray something directly into oncoming traffic as he exits his vehicle. The bikers say it was pepper spray.… “His intent was to hit the bikers for sure, there’s no doubt about it,” Stone says.
The emerging defense appears to be “people were complaining about the bikers weaving,” as if pepper-spraying them at speed is going to make the roads safer.