BALTIMORE �� Dwindling ranks, low morale, brutality complaints and public mistrust have all beset the Baltimore Police Department in recent years.
The choice of Fort Worth, Texas, Police Chief Joel Fitzgerald to head the department is accustomed to such problems.
Last year, Fitzgerald's department was at the center of the national debate over race and policing. The case was familiar: a white officer's assertive arrest of a black woman, a body-camera video that went viral and protests on the courthouse steps.
The controversy tested Fitzgerald, who has said he learned from the experience.
"When something like this happens, I think I need to do a better job of getting right into the community and making sure that they understand where we're coming from, what happened, and getting an explanation right from my mouth," Fitzgerald told The Dallas Morning News last January.
Fitzgerald could not be reached for comment.
The arrest was in December 2016. City officials and police said Fort Worth Officer William Martin responded to 911 calls and found Jacqueline Craig accusing a neighbor of choking her son. The neighbor had said the boy littered in his yard.
Body-camera video shows the scene escalate after Martin intervened.
"Why don't you teach your son not to litter?" the officer asks the mother in the video.
An argument broke out. It ended with Martin drawing his Taser and arresting Craig and with her two daughters.
A local lawyer obtained the body-camera video of the arrest and posted it online. The video drew public attention to the arrest.
Weeks later, the officer met with Fitzgerald. Martin acknowledged that "it was a stupid question."
A recording of their meetings was posted online by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
"I made a bad decision with my choice of words," Martin said, "and all hell broke loose."
An internal affairs investigation found that Martin was disrespectful and used excessive force in the arrest. Fitzgerald suspended him for two weeks without pay.
In Fort Worth, protesters decried what they saw as another example of police brutality against African-Americans.
The police department began an investigation to find out who leaked the video. Fitzgerald demoted two commanders accused of the leak. Both men leading the video and have sued the city.
"We've seen the reactions of communities around the country where people of color have been subjected to, you know, police assaults in certain cases; use of force that has been excessive; and, quite frankly, that's not what we want to say as to how we do business here in the City of Fort Worth," Fitzgerald told the Dallas Morning News.
A career police officer, Fitzgerald was hired three years ago as the first African-American police chief in Fort Worth, a city that is majority white. He was the first African-American police chief of Allentown, Pa., where he held the job for two years.
