Unfair Park from p4 was shot in the back of the head by former Balch Springs police officer Roy Oliver, a white man. The Dallas Morning News reported on the federal court decision first late last Tuesday. Oliver and other officers were respond- ing to a noise complaint about a house party in April 2017. They heard gunfire while there, and Oliver grabbed his rifle out of his patrol car. Around the same time, Edwards, his brothers and two friends were getting in their car to leave. Edwards’ brother, Vidal Allen, was driving the car. Another officer, Tyler Gross, told Allen to stop as the car was pulling away. That’s when Oliver ran toward the car and shot five times, killing Edwards. The car was free of weapons, drugs and al- cohol, as was the party house. The Balch Springs Police Department fired Oliver the following month. In August 2018, he was found guilty of murdering Ed- wards and sentenced to 15 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. Oliver’s lawyers appealed, but his sentence was upheld in in 2020. The Edwards family sued Oliver and the city of Balch Springs in 2017. In February, a federal district court judge dropped the city from the lawsuit, but Oliver wasn’t so lucky. He and his lawyers argued that qualified im- munity should shield him from the lawsuit. In a 17-page opinion published this week, a panel of judges with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said they disagreed. Quali- fied immunity is a controversial legal doc- trine that broadly shields government employees from liability for violating a per- son’s constitutional rights. Oliver’s attorney, William Krueger, de- clined to comment on the record. But in court filings, Krueger referenced other simi- lar cases as reasons for why Oliver should be granted qualified immunity. Daryl Washington, a local civil rights at- torney hired by the Edwards family, told the Observer they were happy with the decision. They’re not so happy with the city of Balch Springs. “I will tell you, we are thoroughly disap- pointed with the city of Balch Springs and the way they’ve treated this family,” Wash- ington said. This is why they appealed the courts decision to drop the city from the lawsuit. Washington, as he’s argued in court fil- ings, believes the city is partially to blame. For example, the city could provide better training. The city could have refused to hire Oliver, and it would have been justified in doing so, Washington argues. “There were a number of things that supported our belief that the city of Balch Springs should have never hired Roy Oliver in the first place,” Washington added. For example, Oliver applied for jobs at several police departments in 2011. When the Balch Springs Police Department gave him a psychological test, it found he had an “elevated score” on the “risk-taking index.” As reported by Texas Monthly, the test 6 6 examiner said Oliver “may feel so insensitive to threat that his judgment may be impaired in evaluating the risk of danger. … His sense of entitlement may be so strong that the pos- sibility of his behaving in an antisocial man- ner must be considered.” oxide when it comes to locking warmth in the atmosphere. The leak occurred in what Energy Trans- fer called an “unregulated gathering line” in March. It came just before a United Nations official warned that a “litany of broken cli- mate promises” by corporations and govern- ments has put us “firmly on track toward an unlivable world.” Kelcy Warren, executive chairman of En- ergy Transfer, is apparently a fan of Gov. Greg Abbott. He donated $1 million to the incumbent’s reelection campaign after Feb- ruary 2021’s winter freeze wrecked the state’s power grid. Warren’s company raked in $2.4 billion amid the grid’s failure, accord- ing to Axios. The oil tycoon has also sued gubernato- Former Balch Springs officer Roy Oliver Balch Springs Police But the city’s police department hired Oliver anyway. Oliver also faced charges stemming from an accusation that he bran- dished his gun at two women two weeks before he killed Edwards. Those charges were dismissed. A recent ruling by a federal appeals court said that Dallas Police involved in the death of Tony Timpa weren’t shielded by qualified immunity. Timpa was killed in Dallas police custody after he called them for help, saying he was frightened, off his medication and suffering from mental illness. In that decision, the court considered the logical similarities between the Timpa case and others cited in the lawsuit, instead of disregarding them because the circum- stances weren’t exactly the same. It’s a po- tential chink in the armor of the qualified immunity defense. “We have many cases this has potential application for,” Niles Illich, an attorney with the Dallas law firm Scott H. Palmer PC, told the Observer in December. Now, another federal decision against the defense has come down, this time in Oliver’s case. But Washington said, “It’s just as hard as it’s always been” to defend against qualified immunity. In a case as egregious as this one, Washington said the decision “shouldn’t even require five minutes of analysis.” He said, “It makes no sense.” ▼ ENVIRONMENT A PIPELINE OWNED BY DALLAS OIL TYCOON KELCY WARREN REPORTEDLY LEAKED A LOT OF METHANE IN A SHORT TIMESPAN. BY SIMONE CARTER METHANE MADNESS D allas-based natural gas company En- ergy Transfer is in the hot seat after news broke that one of its pipelines had a significant leak. Earlier this week, Bloomberg reported that one of the company’s pipelines lost enough methane to equal the annual emis- sions of roughly 16,000 vehicles. The leak, which occurred in South Texas’ Webb County, lasted little more than an hour. Methane is a greenhouse gas that’s par- ticularly adept at trapping heat, according to Axios. It’s far more effective than carbon di- rial challenger Beto O’Rourke for defama- tion because the Democrat lambasted the profits Energy Transfer made after the win- ter storm. Even though the methane leak is “disap- pointing,” it didn’t exactly come as a sur- prise to Courtney Cecale, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of North Texas. She said all pipelines ulti- mately leak and added that Texas is unfortu- nately a leader when it comes to the number of leaks. To be sure, the Energy Transfer leak wasn’t good, but it also wasn’t an aberration, she continued. “This is a bit grim, but it’s re- ally just a drop in the bucket,” Cecale said by email. “The Environmental Defense Fund suggests that the oil and gas industry emits on average 8 million tons of methane per year.” Many people expect to zero in on carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere when dis- cussing climate change, she said. While that’s also important, methane is the sec- ond-most abundant greenhouse gas and is more than 25 times more effective than car- bon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmo- sphere. Cecale said methane’s effect typically hovers around 12 years, which is compara- tively short. The idea that carcinogenic chemicals or heavy metals might have also been emitted from the leak is potentially more concerning, she said. Energy Transfer didn’t return the Ob- server’s request for comment. Bloomberg re- ported the company has said it’s investigating the cause of last month’s leak and that “all appropriate regulatory notifica- tions were made.” Erik Crosman, an assistant professor of environmental science at West Texas A&M University, has noted a dramatic increase in methane emissions from the oil and natural gas sector. “The [Environmental Protection Agency] is just starting to make some efforts to regu- late it, but it’s kind of been the Wild Wild West out in the oil and natural gas field in terms of a lot of old, leaky infrastructure that wasn’t being that well-monitored or kept at bay,” he said. Crosman has studied methane coming from the Permian Basin, which is more leaky than other basins. The Energy Transfer pipeline lost “a ton” of methane for an hour, he said. It would have been a really big deal had it continued unchecked, considering how much methane it lost in just a short span of time. Methane is much worse in terms of global warming potential when compared with carbon dioxide, Crosman said. Natural gas is a clean fuel and is great, provided our infrastructure doesn’t leak. “It’s a supercharged greenhouse gas,” he added. “And we need to make sure that we burn it cleanly and we don’t just let it leak out and become part of the global warming problem.” ▼ CITY HALL MAYOR UNMASKED Airlines. That subset most certainly includes Mayor Eric Johnson. Last week, Dallas-based Southwest took S to Twitter to announce that face coverings are now optional on board its flights. Ameri- can Airlines, which is headquartered in Fort Worth, is doing the same. The move comes as the federal govern- ment said it’s no longer enforcing mask mandates on public transportation. But be- fore the airlines’ Twitter announcements, Johnson engaged in an old-fashioned social media vent session. Mayor Johnson gave Southwest a hard time on Twitter. MAYOR ERIC JOHNSON AIRED HIS BEEF WITH SOUTHWEST AIRLINES IN A SOCIAL MEDIA RANT LAST MONDAY. BY SIMONE CARTER ome passengers will be pleased to learn that they no longer have to wear masks when flying Southwest >> p8 Gabriel Tovar/Unsplash MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2014 APRIL 28–MAY 4, 2022 DALLAS OBSERVER DALLAS OBSERVER | CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | MOVIES | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | FEATURE | SCHUTZE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS | CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | CULTURE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS dallasobserver.com dallasobserver.com
