Texas briefs: Texas woman says warrant presented for son killed by police
May 30, 2018
ARLINGTON — The mother of a black Texas man who police fatally shot last year said Wednesday that sheriff’s deputies recently turned up at her mother’s home to serve a warrant for the dead man’s arrest.
Dee Crane said Tarrant County deputies came to the house in Arlington this month, upsetting her family “all over again.”
Tavis Crane was 23 when he was killed in February 2017. Authorities say Crane ran over a white Arlington police officer while attempting to flee a traffic stop with his 2-year-old daughter and two friends in the car.
Another white police officer, Craig Roper, entered through Crane’s passenger door and shot him. The passengers were not hurt. A grand jury declined to take any action against Roper.
At the time of Crane’s death, police said he had a felony warrant from Dallas County for evading arrest and multiple misdemeanor warrants out of Grand Prairie, a Dallas suburb.
Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office spokesman David McClelland said Wednesday that Dallas County had asked for Tarrant County’s assistance in serving the warrant at Crane’s grandmother’s Arlington home, where records showed he was living. McClelland said records showed there were “several” active warrants out for Crane’s arrest, but not that he was dead.
McClelland said there was no policy or procedure that could be changed to prevent a similar incident from happening again.
“It’s not our standard practice to check the death records if there are multiple active warrants out for somebody,” he said.
Dee Crane filed a harassment complaint with the sheriff’s office Wednesday.
“This was not a mistake,” she said.