From [HERE] The family of a Black man fatally shot by a Fort Worth police officer in 2015 filed a wrongful-death lawsuit in federal court Thursday asserting that the officer fired his weapon without provocation.
Kelvin Goldston, 30, was at a residence under surveillance for drug activity on May 11, 2015, police have said. As he left the house in the 6000 block of Wheaton Drive, his pickup was bracketed in the front and back by two officers driving separate vehicles.
Police have said the two officers — one uniformed and the other in plainclothes — got out of their vehicles and approached the pickup. As they approached they claim Goldston put the truck in reverse and accelerated backward, officials say.
The truck struck the plainclothes officer, a 23-year veteran of the department, as she tried to dive out of its path, causing her minor injuries, officials said.
“The uniformed officer observed the truck accelerating towards the narcotics officer and fired shots in an effort to stop the suspect from running over the narcotics officer,” Sgt. Steve Enright said in a new release the day of the shooting. [MORE]
Goldston was struck multiple times. He was pronounced dead at the scene from what the medical examiner would later rule was a gunshot in the neck.
The lawsuit tells a different story than the one offered by police.
It cites a woman who said she was an eyewitness as saying that the plainclothes officer, a female, never left her vehicle until after the shooting. The uniformed officer used his gun to break the truck’s glass and fired multiple times, at one point reaching into the pickup, the lawsuit states.
“Kelvin was not observed trying to harm anyone nor did he try to drive away as reported and as the evidence supports,” the lawsuit states. “Goldston was sitting in the truck when he was gunned down, execution style.”
White prosecutors declied to indict and a grand jury declined to indict the officer, whose identity has been kept secret by police. Apparently, white prosecutors did not present the grand jury with testimony from the only indendent eyewitness to the incident.
Daryl Washington, an attorney representing the Goldston family, said “The police officer broke the window and then shot Kelvin Goldston.” “You have an eyewitness who was interviewed after this happened. What that person saw happen, none of that testimony was taken into account at all. That in itself was enough to raise probable cause. If you have conflicting testimony from witnesses, it’s not the grand jury’s job to decide credibility; that’s a job for a trial jury.
“The evidence pointed toward this police officer being indicted.” [MORE]