Houston Republic

The arrest and assault of a North Texas man and his son by police officers over a minor traffic infraction last summer underscores the need for legislative reforms limiting arrests for non-jailable minor offenses, advocates say.

In August 2020, police officers in Keller, Texas, pulled over and arrested 22-year-old Dillon Puente for making an improper wide right turn, Lone Star Standard reported. His father, Marco Puente, stood across the street and recorded his son’s arrest on his cellphone. Body cam footage from the incident shows the arresting officers putting the elder Puente in a headlock before pepper spraying him twice. Officers arrested the father and charged him with resisting arrest and interfering with public duties. 

Marco Puente filed a federal lawsuit over the incident in December which has since been settled, and city leaders promised to make sure such encounters will not happen again.

Research shows that tens of thousands of Texas residents are arrested every year for minor fine-only offenses. | Stock photo

"While this chapter is coming to a close, the conversations and policy changes that it has inspired will continue to move us forward as a department, a city and a community," Keller Mayor Armin Mizani said in a Feb. 1 Twitter post. "This council and our police department led by Chief [Brad] Fortune remain committed to ensuring encounters like these never happen again. We will continue working tirelessly to provide every member of our community with a sense of safety and security that reflects Keller’s values."

The incident was not unique to Keller. Research shows that tens of thousands of Texas residents are arrested every year for minor fine-only offenses, Lone Star Standard reported. Most of these arrests are for minor traffic violations and disproportionately target black drivers.

"Black drivers made up nearly half of all drivers arrested on a single non-jailable transportation offense, as well as 41.1% of all people jailed for other non-jailable offenses," according to a 2016 study of Harris County arrests by the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition. "While approximately 70% of Harris County’s population is white, white drivers made up only 22.9% and 24% of the arrests for traffic and other non-jailable offenses, respectively."

A Texas Appleseed study found a high rate of arrests for fine-only offenses in Travis County as well, with one in six jail bookings in 2017 for Class C misdemeanors, KUT reported. 

Mary Mergler, director of Texas Appleseed's criminal justice project, told KUT that arresting people and putting them in jail even for a short time could significantly impact their lives.

"Most misdemeanors are nonviolent offenses – and we know that," Mergler said. "Even a short stay in jail can have a really lasting impact on someone's life. We need to be using jail in a very different way than we're using right now. This data shows that."

Data by the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement shows that police departments indicate that 64,100 traffic stops resulted in an unnecessary arrest of a driver on a minor traffic violation in 2019. 

These arrests cost counties hours of police time, millions of dollars, crowd state jail facilities and worsen already existing tensions between police and the public.

According to research from the University of Houston, 74% of Texans support ending arrests for fine-only offenses.