Cox, a former MMA fighter, was one of several with the department who showed up to the scene of a grass fire in West Dallas in August 2019. There, they found a man named Kyle Vess, who they suspected was setting the fires. Vess suffers from a mental illness similar to schizophrenia as well as the lasting impacts of a previous traumatic head injury. Cox claims that when he tried to approach Vess about the fires, he was attacked. Vess can be seen in video captured that day throwing a piece of PVC pipe at Cox, taking a fighter’s stance and approaching Cox. In the video, the two then disappear behind a fire truck. When they reappear, Vess falls to the ground where Cox kicks him several times.
Officers with the Dallas Police Department and the Dallas County Sheriff’s Department arrived after this occurred. Cox is then captured on body camera footage from the officers standing over Vess as he lies on the ground and the officers discuss what to do next. Vess starts to sit up. That’s when Cox plants another kick to Vess’ face. Vess stands up to approach Cox and appears to get punched twice before a DPD officer uses a Taser on him, causing him to fall to the ground. Vess continued to be combative as police and DFR personnel took him into custody.
Cox would remain with DFR until video of the incident surfaced some two years later. Cox was first put on leave after the Observer released video of the incident and The Dallas Morning News followed up with an article raising further questions. He was later fired from the department. Last week, however, Cox appeared before a judge with the city’s civil service board in an attempt to get his job back. If he failed, his last course of action would have been to take up the matter with the district court. But he prevailed after a two-day hearing last week. He has claimed the whole time that he was merely defending himself when he kicked Vess all those times.
According to Jim McDade, president of the Dallas Fire Fighers Association, he and about 40 or 50 other firefighters turned out to support Cox during his hearing. The hearing looked at the facts of the case to determine if a rule violation occurred and, if so, was the right punishment dished out for the violation. McDade said the judge did determine that Cox violated a rule, disregarding the public’s trust, but termination wasn’t the right punishment. Instead, the judge determined that Cox should be demoted and not receive back pay for the time he wasn’t with DFR. Cox was demoted from a driver-engineer, one of the department’s promoted ranks, to a fire rescue officer.
McDade said all the firefighters at the hearing were pleased with the outcome. “But the reality is we’re disappointed that we even had to get to this point,” McDade said. “I’ve stated all along that he never should’ve been terminated. We’ve taken an incident and basically broken it down to basically a photograph and a couple seconds of a video instead of properly looking at it. You have to look at the totality of the incident.”
He said Cox was defending himself and his crew, as well as protecting Vess from running into traffic. “It turned into a political and a PR mess for the city and their easy way out was to terminate Brad and to make Brad look bad,” McDade said. “In reality, we should have been discussing what sort of award or medal that Brad should have received and not terminated him.”“In reality, we should have been discussing what sort of award or medal that Brad should have received and not terminated him.” – Jim McDade, Dallas Fire Fighters Association
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Vess' family has been advised by their attorney not to comment on the case. McDade said plenty of firefighters and paramedics have been faced with situations where they’ve had to defend themselves, and that this situation has made them question whether they should.
Cox’s firing wasn’t the first disciplinary action he faced.
According to The Dallas Morning News, Cox was reprimanded three other times after he was hired in 2002. He was reprimanded for refusing to provide medical treatment to patients. In one incident, it was determined that he failed to assess and transport a patient in 2008. According to the News, Cox was suspended without pay for one shift over this. Three years later, Cox would receive a letter of counseling for “unacceptable conduct” after he failed to ride with a patient in the back of an ambulance in a rush to the hospital.
Then there was his run-in with a homeless man named Hirschell Fletcher in 2016. Fletcher, who was previously diagnosed with schizophrenia, was assaulted and robbed outside a soup kitchen in Dallas. He was assaulted again when someone punched him in the head, causing him to fall and hit his head on a wall. People who saw Fletcher alerted a nearby police officer named George Morales. He called two other officers and two DFR paramedics to the scene. One of them was Cox. According to court documents, Fletcher told the officers and paramedics that he needed medical attention for his head injuries. It was apparent Fletcher was hurt as blood and contusions were “patently visible,” according to court documents. The officers assumed Fletcher was drunk and arrested him for public intoxication. They then took him to the Dallas Marshal’s Office and City Detention Center.
Fletcher was found unresponsive in his cell the next morning. He was rushed to the hospital but died shortly after due to bleeding caused by his head injuries. Cox and the other paramedic allegedly stated falsely in their report of the incident that they had no contact with Fletcher. They were later indicted in Dallas County for falsifying their report, which stated that Fletcher had been taken from the scene before they arrived.
Cox was still on probation for falsifying a government document when the incident with Vess unfolded.
Though he’s been reinstated, Cox still faces two federal lawsuits: one over the Vess case and one over the Fletcher case. In Vess’ suit, the family alleges that Cox used excessive force and should have been fired from the department a long time ago. In the other case, the family argues that Cox violated Fletcher’s Fourteenth Amendment rights when the paramedics failed to treat him.
The department said in a statement to the Observer it will follow standard procedures for any employee returning after an extended leave of absence from active employment. Cox will be required to complete a refresher training designed to ensure he is compliant with all department rules and is fully prepared to return to active duty. The department also said all returning members of DFR must go through a medical director-driven enhanced 40-hour EMS bootcamp, de-escalation training and mental health training to ensure they’re ready to be out in the field.
