COMMERCE (WBAP/KLIF News) — An external investigation has cleared the Commerce Police Chief of any wrongdoing following accusations of wrongfully detaining a former pageant winner and calling her a racial slur.
The City of Commerce has dropped charges against Carmen Ponder, Miss Black Texas 2016, who was arrested outside a Wal-Mart after getting into an argument with another driver.
Ponder claimed Chief Kerry Crews was teaching his 14-year-old daughter how to drive, when the two of them cut her off while driving erratically. That’s when, according to Ponder, there was a dispute that led to Crews calling her a racially-charged name.
She said that led to her eventual arrest outside a Wal-Mart when police found her and told her to apologize for her behavior.
The investigation found Crews was not involved in the altercation in the vehicles. It did find that Crews was in the Wal-Mart, but that the arrest made did not have anything to do with race.
Ponder’s attorney, Lee Merritt, says investigators missed the point.
I'm afraid @CityOfCommerce missed the point. Chief Crews directed the unlawful arrest of @CarmenSierraaa under unjustifiable circumstances https://t.co/wuLugVL3Ss
— Lee Merritt (@LeeMerrittesq) June 12, 2017
Ponder also took to Twitter to express her frustration with the results of the investigation.
https://twitter.com/CarmenSierraaa/status/874400482596450304?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dallasnews.com%2Fnews%2Fhunt-county%2F2017%2F06%2F12%2Fmiss-black-texas-arrest-racially-motivated-investigation-finds
Merritt and Ponder held a press conference at Tuesday morning to discuss the investigation’s findings. Merritt said Chief Crews should not have forced Ponder to apologize to the drivers.
“If that’s how he behaves in relatively mundane non-hostile situations, how does he handle actually deadly situations? How does he train his officers? That’s a concern that needs to be addressed by the City of Commerce,” he said.
Merritt said he hopes to work with the Commerce Police Department and not file a lawsuit.
“We would like to see them acknowledge the issues of institutional racism within the city. This case is but one case that we believe is a symptom of what we believe is a larger problem,” he said.
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