RICHMOND, Texas (KTRK) — A Fort Bend County family is demanding answers after they say a Texas state trooper punched the front windshield of their car during a traffic stop.
“To me, this here is totally unjustifiable for the trooper who did it,” said Marcie Creek, the couple’s daughter.
Francisco Montemayor, 81, was driving his 75-year-old wife to a Saturday afternoon lunch in Richmond when they say they slowed down to pass a trooper who was conducting a traffic stop.
They were driving northbound on FM 2218, a narrow two-lane road with no shoulder.
“(The) DPS trooper had somebody pulled over, traffic was going slow because it was congested in that area,” Creek recalled. “(The) DPS trooper made a gesture to my dad to slow down. (My) dad was already coming slow. He was moving over when the DPS trooper stepped out.”
That’s when her mother claims that without warning, the trooper fired a punch into the passenger side of the front windshield.
“He took his fist and he hit my parents’ car,” Creek said. “Literally.”
She says her mother opened her door and apologized to the trooper, then asked about their window.
They say the trooper’s only reply was, “F***ing go.”
The couple drove away in shock without a citation, a warning and no other words from the trooper.
Their front windshield was left battered and the car covered with fragments of glass.
“My mom had slivers of glass on her clothes, on her shorts, in the floor board,” Creek said. “It was pretty much everywhere.”
When Creek’s mother went to brush it off, she said slivers got caught in her fingers and hand.
ABC13 Eyewitness News spoke with a DPS supervisor as he visited the family’s home Monday, checking on the couple and their car.
He admitted the trooper was responsible for the broken windshield and said an internal investigation is underway.
The supervisor says they are working to fully replace the windshield.
In addition, DPS sent ABC13 Eyewitness News the following statement:
The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) takes complaints like this very seriously. After learning about this incident, the department took immediate action based on preliminary findings. The Trooper involved is being suspended pending the outcome of an investigation by the DPS Office of Inspector General and the Texas Rangers.
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https://abc13.com/dps-trooper-smashes-elderly-couples-windshield-with-fist/5350514/