Officer on Leave After "Embarrassing" Arrest Video

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Mother Wants Hurst Police Officer's Badge

The mother of 17-year-old seen in a YouTube video being kneed in the back and cursed at by a Hurst police officer says she wants the officer fired and charged with aggravated asault.

Officer on Leave After "Embarrassing" Arrest Video

A Hurst police officer has been placed on administrative leave after an "embarrassing" arrest video was published to YouTube.

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A Hurst police officer has been placed on administrative leave after an "embarrassing" arrest video was published on YouTube.

Officer Disraeli Arnold, a four-year veteran of the department, was caught on camera Wednesday kneeing a teenager in the back of the head while cussing and threatening him.

Kelly Pope said her family doesn't question the arrest of her son, 17-year-old Andrew Rodriguez, but plans to talk to the police department about how her son was arrested. She also said she wants Arnold to turn in his badge.

"I would like that guy off the force, is what I'd like," she said.

After an hourlong meeting with the Hurst Police Department on Monday, Pope and a group of civil rights activists suggested that Arnold be charged with aggravated assault and attend anger management classes.

"We've never seen this kind of aggressive behavior by a police officer against a member of our community," said Carlos Quintanilla, of Action America.

Pope said she knows her son initially was wrong but said that Arnold's actions were excessive.

"He [her son] knows that he handled it badly at first, that he should have been a little more cooperative," she said. "But, you know, the second officer -- there was no reason for it."

A friend of Rodriguez uploaded video of the arrest to YouTube.

"He (Arnold) comes up at a jolting sprint, kneed him in the back of the head and, as you can see on the video, he says, 'If you move I'm going to [expletive] kill you,'" Pope said.

The teen and the officer verbally sparred back and forth while he was taken into custody.

Afterward, Arnold paraded in front of the friend recording the arrest and said, "You got it on tape? Arnold, 654!"

Hurst Police Assistant Chief Steve Niekamp said Monday that Arnold responded to a request for backup from Officer Jimenez.

Niekamp said Rodriguez kept trying to walk away while Jimenez questioned him and eventually shoved the officer. Jimenez then took Rodriguez to the ground, he said.

He said the video appears to show that Jimenez was struggling to get the situation under control.

"There probably was a heightened sense of an officer in trouble," Niekamp said. "Rodriguez should have complied. He had plenty of opportunity before that to listen to the officer's commands."

The department on Monday morning placed Arnold on administrative leave pending an ongoing internal affairs investigation. The department said the officer's actions, including kneeing the teen, swearing and parading in front of the camera are all major concerns.

"This is not behavior that the city of Hurst or the Hurst Police Department promotes or condones," the department said.

"You can't help but be embarrassed -- not only for the officers that work in our department, but for anybody in the law enforcement profession," Niekamp said. "You just expect when an officer shows up, they're going to be in charge. You don't want the foul language, anything that looks like it might be overreaction. You just want to be professional, calm and in control of the scene."

According to a performance assessment and disciplinary file released by Hurst police Monday, Arnold has met or exceeded police standards in nearly every assessment in four years. The department considers qualities such as professionalism, respect and teamwork.

However, on an otherwise good performance assessment, the document noted that in May 2010, "Officer Arnold's enthusiasm may make him overzealous at times, which can cloud his judgment when it comes to policy, procedure and tactics. Sometimes he needs to step back and see the big picture and risks involved."

Hurst police have also confirmed that they are investigating a second complaint against Arnold that was filed by a driver this summer.

Pope said that she is satisfied with the way the police department has handled the situation up to this point. An internal investigation will move forward once Pope files an official complaint, which she said she expects to do Tuesday.

NBC 5's Kendra Lyn, Mark Schnyder, Mola Lenghi and Scott Gordon contributed to this report.

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Man Gets Refund After Van Wrongly Towed

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A Euless resident got a full refund and a call to make amends from the police chief after his van was wrongly towed from the side of a city road.

John Ingram told the NBC 5 Investigates Consumer Unit that his wife's minivan was towed after she ran out of gas on Fuller-Wiser Road while she was taking two of their children to school.

She called him, and he picked up the children while she walked a few blocks to their home with their toddler in tow. He took the children to school and then went for gas.

In the time he was gone, police ordered the city-contracted wrecker service to pick the abandoned vehicle.

"Our officer, he filled out his paperwork," Euless Police Chief Michael Brown said. "The wrecker arrived. He hands off his paperwork to the wrecker driver, and then he drives away."

Ingram returned to the van with the gas, but the tow truck driver had already hooked up the vehicle.

"I told the wrecker driver that I've got gas, [and] I'd like to get it off the road myself," Ingram said, adding that the wrecker driver told him he couldn't release the vehicle because police ordered the tow.

Ingram's van was towed to the Euless B&B Wrecker lot on Euless Boulevard, right across from the police station.

He had to pay $200 to get the vehicle back.

"I was just stressed out, really, because, you know, we live on one income right now," he said. "We have a tight budget."

But under a city ordinance passed in March, the tow truck operator should have offered Ingram a drop fee.

The ordinance, which was the police chief's brainchild, requires towing companies to offer vehicle owners a drop fee of no more than $100 if they arrive before the car is towed away.

"You can come up and, about the time they're towing it off, you can say, 'Let me pay the drop fee. If you'll drop my car, I'll pay you for hooking up,' or a drop fee," Brown said. "Then you get your car back on the spot."

Brown said the ordinance was designed to free up police resources and help residents avoid paying large fees.

But word of the ordinance did not trickle down to all of the officers.

"I will just say that part of that's my fault," Brown said. "You get good at what you emphasize, and we needed to emphasize to our officers the ins and outs of that ordinance just a little bit better."

The owner of B&B Wrecker said he didn't know about the ordinance. He told NBC 5 Investigates that he did not believe his driver did anything wrong because he cannot independently stop a police-ordered tow. The officer should have stayed at the scene and given permission to release the van, he said.

But the head of the Southwest Tower Operators Association said it's the tower's responsibility to know the ordinances of each city.

"It definitely is," said Tommy Anderson, the association's executive director. "Hopefully, he's communicating with the city and he understands that."

The Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation regulates towers, and a tow operator who fails to follow the rules can face fines.

"They can range from hundreds to thousands of dollars; just depends on what TDLR finds," Anderson said.

Contact information for TDLR that directs people to the state agency if they want to file a complaint should be on every tower's receipt. By law, TDLR could investigate Ingram's case and possibly impose a fine, an agency spokeswoman told NBC 5 Investigates.

Ingram said the information was on his receipt and admitted that the situation had frustrated him.

"I guess I was a little, you know, anxious and maybe, you know, a little rude to them," he said. "But I wasn't there to try to cause trouble. I just wanted to get somebody to cut me a break."

Brown said he understood Ingram's perspective.

"At that point, if I was him, I'd be very frustrated, too," he said. I'd be frustrated with the wrecker service, and I'd be frustrated with the police department."

But the situation could have been avoided if Ingram had called police from the get-go, Brown added.

"If he would've just called and told us that, 'Hey, my car is out of gas. I've gone to get gas, and I'll be back as quickly as I can.' Well, we would have stayed there, held traffic off the car until he could have got there. We would have never called the wrecker, and he could have been on his way with no hassles."

In the end, Ingram said he was impressed that Brown had called him and was relieved to get his $200 back.

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Fire Breaks Out at Garland Apartment Complex

Kevin Cokely, NBC 5 News

A fire broke out at an apartment building at a complex in Garland. Eighteen families were moved to other apartments on the property after the power was cut to the building.

Firefighters Battle Garland Apartment Fire

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Firefighters battled an apartment fire in Garland on Monday night.

The fire broke out at the Landmark at Lake Village North apartments in the 3500 block of Bobtown Road shortly after 8 p.m.

The blaze, which may have started in a kitchen, quickly spread to the attic.

About 50 firefighters were brought in to fight the fire, which was contained to a single building with 18 apartments.

No one was hurt.

Power was cut to the entire building, and property managers are moving the 18 affected families to other apartments on the property.

Firefighters believe the fire started in a kitchen.

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Sunken WWII Fighter Plane Found in Waters Off Miami Beach

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A World War II-era fighter plane has been discovered some 240 feet below the surface in the waters off Miami Beach, officials with an exploration company said Tuesday.

The 28-foot Grumman F6F Hellcat was discovered back in June during one of several dives by OceanGate Inc. The company had been using high-frequency sonar and high-definition photo and video equipment to gather data on artificial reefs in Miami-Dade County waters.

"The discovery of this artifact is significant because it helps us reflect on and learn more about our country's heritage, but also because it highlights the key role that direct observation plays in undersea exploration," Stockton Rush, co-founder and CEO of OceanGate, said in a statement.

Initial scans provided by NOAA showed a 100-foot long object that was believed to be a sunken ship, but when a team in OceanGate's Antipodes submersible went to the site, they discovered it was the distinctive fighter plane. Officials at the Smithsonian Institution and the U.S. Navy confirmed it was a Hellcat.

Dive teams have been back to the site to collect data, photos and videos of the plane wreckage, which were donated to the Naval History & Heritage Command in Washington, D.C.

Sunken U.S. Navy ships and aircraft are protected from unauthorized disturbance under the Sunken Military Craft Act.

The Hellcat was flown by both Navy and Marine Corps pilots during World War II, when Florida was an active training center. Some 79 Hellcats were lost off of Florida's Atlantic Coast between 1943 and 1952, with only eight of the losses after 1945. Not all of the losses were fatal, as some of the pilots managed successful water landings and bailouts.

"In the course of its production run, 12,275 Hellcats were delivered to the Navy," Bob Rasmussen, director of the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, said in a statement. "During peak production one each hour, 24 hours per day, rolled off the Grumman line. Of these only a handful exist today and the discovery of one more, even under 240 feet of Atlantic Ocean, is important to Naval Aviation History."

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LA Malls Unveil Caviar Vending Machines

L.G. Patterson

Beverly Hills Caviar has installed vending machines in Los Angeles-area malls to sell the expensive delicacy (not the caviar shown in this file image).

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Chips, candy, soda -- and now caviar.

Vending machines hawking the expensive delicacy were unveiled in Los Angeles-area shopping centers last week, the Daily Mail reported. 

Stocked by Beverly Hills Caviar, these "caviar ATMs" also offer truffles, escargot, blinis, oils, Mother of Pearl utensils, gift boxes and gourmet salts.

No dollar bills here, though, as the caviar prices range from $50 to $500 an ounce, according to Los Angeles Magazine. For customers' convenience, some of the machines are open until 2 a.m., reported the food blog Eater.

The machines are available at the Burbank Town Center, the Topanga Westfield Mall and Century City Mall.

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Man's Arm Severed in Early-Morning Crash

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A North Texas man is in jail, accused of drunken driving and causing a high-speed crash early Tuesday morning that severed a man's arm.

The crash took place at about 2:30 a.m. along U.S. Highway 75 just north of the High Five.

Police said the driver of a Honda, James Dunne, had been speeding so fast he came up behind the Yellow Checker airport van and slammed into it from behind.

The van's driver, Matthew Leon, lost control and flipped the vehicle several times onto the frontage road. 

Inside the airport shuttle van were passengers Kenneth and Carol Ann Dux, who, according to their neighbors, were just 10 minutes from returning home after a week-long vacation.

In the crash, 70-year-old Kenneth Dux's arm was severed at the elbow. Paramedics found the man's limb and transported both to Parkland Hospital in Dallas so that surgeons could attempt to reattach the man's arm.

Rescuers said Carol, 72, is a little banged up from the crash but is expected to recover.

The van company said Leon was treated and released from the hospital.

Dunne was also taken to the hospital for a hand injury before being turned over to the Richardson Police Department. Richardson investigator Jonathan Wakefield told NBC 5 that the way Dunne acted after the wreck, as well as evidence they found at the scene, led officers to believe Dunne had been under the influence of alcohol.

Dunne's blood was drawn at the hospital and police said he is facing charges for intoxication assault.

The crash, including Dunne's speed at the time of the collision, is being investigated by police.

A witness to the crash, security guard Carl Dungan, said the sound of the crash seemed to last 10-15 seconds and that drivers speeding through the area is a common problem.

"This is a dangerous stretch of 75 right here.  I see them coming here in excess of 100 (miles per hour) constantly. Every night, you just sit there and kind of watch them and go, 'Wow!'" said Dungan. "It's a shame the guy lost his arm, at least no one was killed."

As of this writing, there has been no word if Dux's arm was able to be reattached.

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DMA Goes Free in January

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The Dallas Museum of Art goes free next year.

Both the admission and membership prices for the DMA will be free starting January 21, 2013.

The change was announced Tuesday morning during a special news event.

Maxwell L. Anderson, the Eugene McDermott Director of the Dallas Museum of Art, published a video message addressing the change.

Anderson said current museum members will be transitioned to a new "Partners" status, which will give them special benefits including free admission to special exhibitions, free parking, and exclusive programs.

"Visitors literally bring life to the Dallas Museum of Art. Their participation in our galleries, exhibitions, education initiatives, and public programs activates the DMA and is the cornerstone of a vibrant cultural community," Anderson said in a press release. "Through a return to free general admission and the new Friends & Partners program, we can open the doors of the Museum and show appreciation to our visitors for the many ways their participation matters to the DMA. We believe that by increasing access to the Museum and by finding new ways to say 'thank you,' we can fundamentally change the role museums play in a global society."  

The free general admission will also offer visitors to become "Friends" of the museum and earn credits based on their participation with the museum. Those credits could allow "Friends" to become "Partners" as well.

"New technologies and online participation are already an integral part of many visitors' daily lives," said Rob Stein, the DMA's Deputy Director, who, along with Anderson, is spearheading technology initiatives at the Museum. "As part of our new approach to visitor engagement, we want to provide our audiences with enhanced ways to feel connected to the Museum and to share their opinions with us and each other. In doing so, we hope to build a virtual community that is as strong as our physical one. The DMA Friends program uses technology to demonstrate to our visitors that the DMA recognizes the value they bring to the Museum when they engage deeply in sharing their creativity and ideas with us."

The DMA previously was free to visitors until 2001. The 2013 change is being called a "reinstatement of the policy."

More information on the changes is expected to be posted to the museum's official site.

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