Tag: Fort Worth

Amy Spurlock didn’t cry, at least not that afternoon.

It was the week before Christmas, and she stood on Northwest 20th Street in Fort Worth’s north side looking at a wooden cross that marked where her 20-year-old son, Crawford Blake Bullock, had died almost exactly a year ago.

In the December chill, Spurlock watched her son’s friends from a church group in Midland, where Bullock grew up, decorate the cross with photos and mementos from a life cut short. Among the items was a light-up snow globe, the kind Spurlock said she would give her son at the holidays.

Spurlock reminisced about Bullock and laughed with his friends, but underneath the stoicism and occasional smiles raged an undercurrent of grief, anger and frustration fueled by questions about what happened the night her son was hit by a Fort Worth police vehicle after an altercation with his girlfriend and her mother.

Bullock was later pronounced dead at the scene.

A night out turns deadly

In 2024, Bullock moved from Midland to Weatherford with his girlfriend, Chloe McDonald, 19, and their infant son.

That year, on Dec. 14, the couple, joined by Chloe’s mother, Tomlyn McDonald, 47, went out to Billy Bob’s in the Fort Worth Stockyards.

According to Chloe, Bullock was too drunk to get inside the bar when they arrived. With help from a stranger, she got Bullock back into the car, but she said they fought while they waited for her mother to come out of Billy Bob’s.

In a phone conversation, Chloe alleged Bullock was violent while also admitting she got physical with him.

“Don’t get me wrong, I was fighting him, too,” Chloe said.

The fighting continued in the car on the way home to Weatherford. In a phone interview, Tomlyn, who was driving that night, described it as “bickering” between Chloe and Bullock.

“They were yelling and screaming back and forth at each other,” she said.

Finally, Tomlyn said, she’d had enough. Just before 2:15 a.m. on Dec. 15, she stopped the car next to a wooded area on Northwest 20th Street, near the intersection of Ephriham Avenue. Tomlyn said she intended to intervene between her daughter and Bullock, but Bullock attacked her.

Tomlyn described it as a vicious beating. She said Bullock punched her and bit her. Finally, she said she got him out of the car, and she and Chloe drove away.

A few minutes later, Bullock, who was lying in the street, was struck by a Fort Worth police vehicle driven by an officer responding to a report of gunfire.

Surveillance, bodycam and dashcam footage tell the story of Bullock’s final moments

The Star-Telegram obtained from the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office surveillance footage, police bodycam footage and police dashcam footage that was used in the investigation into Bullock’s death.

The surveillance footage was captured by a camera at a business directly across from where Chloe and Tomlyn left Bullock.

In that video, you see a white compact sedan turn right onto Northwest 20th Street from Ephriham Avenue. It stops with the driver’s side facing the camera. An occupant opens the passenger door. In the dome light, you can see someone throwing punches, though it’s unclear who it is.

Someone then gets out and stands on the passenger side while movement continues inside the car for a few seconds, then everything is still for about a minute and a half. Somehow, Chloe ends up in the driver’s seat, and she moves the car forward a few feet.

That’s when you see Tomlyn and Bullock emerge from behind the vehicle and fall to the ground, one on top of the other, but it’s difficult to tell who’s who. The one on top punches the one on the bottom at least six times before Chloe gets out of the car and pushes that person away.

A struggle ensues, and all three end up on the ground. At this point, it’s impossible to tell what’s happening in the grainy surveillance footage. A few moments later, Chloe helps her mom up. Tomlyn gets in the driver’s seat, Chloe gets in the passenger seat, and they drive away, leaving Bullock in the road. He appears to raise and lower his arm, but there is no further movement.

Three minutes later, Tomlyn and Chloe come back. They idle in the car with the headlights on Bullock, who is lying still, then they drive off. Another vehicle passes Bullock shortly after, but the driver doesn’t stop.

Minutes after that, a Fort Worth police vehicle driven by Officer Brock Atkins turns right onto Northwest 20th Street with its lights flashing. For a second, Bullock is visible in the SUV’s headlights in the surveillance footage. The vehicle strikes Bullock, pushing him sideways, and the officer continues on.

Shortly after, four other police vehicles turn onto Northwest 20th Street. The first vehicle continues past Bullock, but the other three stop and officers get out. The surveillance footage used in the investigation ends at this point.

The officers, Atkins included, were responding to a report of gunfire made by John Garcia, a nearby resident who had called 911 a little after 2 a.m.

In phone conversations with the Star-Telegram, Chloe and Tomlyn were adamant that Bullock was fine when they left him. When asked what shape he was in, Tomlyn said he was “alive and well” and had just finished punching and biting her.

A post-mortem toxicology report showed Bullock was intoxicated, but Tomlyn doesn’t believe he passed out in the road, and she and Chloe both said they didn’t injure him.

Garcia, the 911 caller who lives on Northwest 20th Street, said the sound of gunshots isn’t uncommon in his neighborhood, but he also heard what sounded like a young man screaming “I don’t want to die.” Hearing that is what made him call the police that night.

In audio of the 911 call that Spurlock shared, Garcia tells the dispatcher he hears someone yelling out, but he can’t see the person.

In an interview, Garcia said it was too dark for him to tell where the shouts were coming from. But he said he did see Chloe and Tomlyn drive by, honking the car horn. After that, Garcia said, is when he heard the screaming.

Details of Bullock’s death

The medical examiner attributed Bullock’s death to blunt force trauma, but the manner of death was ruled “inconclusive.” In his report, the medical examiner raised the possibility that Bullock had suffered injuries from the altercation with Chloe and Tomlyn, noting abrasions and lacerations on Bullock’s head along with the skull fractures. Bullock also had abrasions on his hands, chest and upper back.

The toxicology report put Bullock’s blood alcohol level at between 0.13 and 0.19, numbers indicating a high level of intoxication.

A Texas Department of Transportation accident report said Bullock had been left “incapacitated” before Atkins’ vehicle hit him.

Viewing Atkins’ bodycam video from that night, there’s a bang after he turns onto Northwest 20th Street at the point where he struck Bullock, but Atkins doesn’t acknowledge he’d hit someone.

Atkins stopped about 200 yards from Bullock at Garcia’s home. Atkins talked with Garcia along with two other officers who responded to the call, then he left and drove around the block in search of the source of the gunshots.

When he returned to Northwest 20th Street, Atkins approached officers gathered near Bullock, who was lying in the road with blood streaming from his head. One officer was giving Bullock chest compressions while others searched for shell casings, believing Bullock had been shot.

Atkins assisted at the scene, seemingly unaware of what had happened. When he saw a Fort Worth police sergeant several minutes later, though, the sergeant pulled him aside and told him he thought he might have hit Bullock. Atkins called the sergeant “Castillo” in the video. Sgt. Andrew Castillo was Atkins’ supervisor, according to personnel records obtained by the Star-Telegram.

The Star-Telegram attempted to reach Atkins for comment, but was unsuccessful. A police department official said he would see if Atkins and Castillo were willing to speak on the record. Neither has yet responded.

During the conversation captured on the bodycam, Castillo asked Atkins if he felt anything while driving.

“I felt, like bumps,” Atkins replied. “But it’s north side, so I didn’t know if I hit a bump or whatnot.”

Castillo told Atkins to download his dashcam video for review. Shortly after, Atkins watched the footage while sitting in his car, his bodycam showed. An unidentified officer joined him to view the video.

Watching the dashcam footage, Atkins saw Bullock lying in the road and realized that he did indeed hit him with his vehicle.

Upon seeing that, Atkins became visibly upset, the bodycam video showed. The other officer tried to comfort Atkins.

“Hey, bro, you got your mind set on one thing,” the officer told Atkins. “It sucks, but you got your mind set on one thing. And your intentions were good. You were trying to get here and not expecting that s–t at all.”

That officer then told Atkins not to talk to anyone. In a broken voice, Atkins told him he needed a minute to gather himself. After that, he shut off his bodycam.

The Star-Telegram asked three experts to review the video footage and other records associated with the case and give their opinions on what happened.

Jennifer Falk, a defense attorney and partner at the Dallas law firm McCathern, Shokouhi, Evans, said she saw no evidence of negligence or intentionality when Atkins’ car hit Bullock. Phillip Lyons, dean of Sam Houston State University’s College of Criminal Justice, and Maria Haberfeld, a professor of police science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, both concurred after independently viewing Atkins’ bodycam footage.

When asked how Atkins could have hit someone with his car without knowing it, Lyons and Haberfeld attributed it to elevated stress hormones. Lyons, a former police officer who holds a Ph.D. in forensic clinical psychology, said in an email that it was possible Atkins had tunnel vision when he turned onto Northwest 20th Street as he was entering what he believed could have been a dangerous situation. In Lyons’ view, reality dawned on Atkins after his cortisol levels dropped.

Likewise, Haberfeld believed an adrenaline spike could have initially clouded Atkins’ awareness.

“When police officers are on their way to a call for service, as was the case here, and especially when the call involves a potential violent encounter with a suspect, their adrenaline level goes up, fear kicks in and their attention to other environmental factors is impaired due to the stress that they are experiencing,” Haberfeld wrote in an email.

The Star-Telegram requested personnel records through an open records request, but a Fort Worth records clerk at first said there were no responsive documents. Subsequent requests for records through the city clerk’s office produced employment documents Atkins signed in 2022, apparently when he joined the police force. There was also an October 2024 performance review signed by Castillo, who gave Atkins an overall positive evaluation.

“Officer Atkins is a valuable asset to our department, exemplifying the qualities of dedication, integrity and a strong work ethic,” Castillo wrote in the performance review.

When asked if Atkins could be held liable for Bullock’s death, Falk said it was unlikely.

“Officers are generally pretty protected in their actions, unless those actions are really, really egregious, or it’s an ongoing pattern which makes it more egregious,“ Falk said.

From Falk’s perspective, what Atkins did was accidental, and it would be incredibly difficult to prove otherwise.

What did police make of Chloe and Tomlyn’s involvement?

Fort Worth police would not release records to the Star-Telegram related to a homicide investigation into Bullock’s death. A police spokesperson would only say investigators reviewed the evidence before declining to pursue charges against the McDonald women.

“After careful consideration of all information and applicable law, detectives determined that the evidence did not support filing criminal charges against Tomlyn or Chloe,” the spokesperson wrote in an email. “These decisions are never taken lightly and are based solely on the law and evidence.”

Spurlock said when she called the police department in early 2025, a sergeant with the homicide unit told her Chloe and Tomlyn would have been within their rights to shoot Bullock after what he’d allegedly done to them during the altercation that preceded his death.

The Star-Telegram requested comment on that allegation from Chief Eddie Garcia’s chief of staff, but he said he had no knowledge of the case and declined to speak on it.

Indeed, a history of violence marred Chloe and Bullock’s relationship. In October 2024, Bullock was arrested in Weatherford on charges of domestic violence against Chloe. Records reveal he was subsequently arrested two more times that November for violating a protective order.

In a phone conversation, Chloe said she and Bullock willingly broke the order meant to keep them apart.

“We were obsessed with each other,” she said. “It was stupid, young love.”

Police records showed there was another domestic disturbance at Chloe and Bullock’s apartment before they left for Billy Bob’s on Dec. 14. Weatherford police were dispatched, but no arrest was made after Chloe and Tomlyn told officers Bullock wasn’t there.

Talking with the Star-Telegram, Tomlyn admitted Bullock was, in fact, in the apartment.

In 2023, Tomlyn herself was charged with assault in Midland County after throwing a billiard ball at Bullock, according to court records and Tomlyn’s own statements. That charge was dismissed in June 2025 because Bullock was deceased.

Tomlyn said Bullock was living with her and Chloe at the time. According to Tomlyn, she and Bullock got into an argument, and he punched through a glass door at her house. Tomlyn said she ran behind a pool table to get away from Bullock and threw the ball in “anger and terror.”

The billiard ball, Tomlyn said, hit Bullock in the lower leg, and he called police. But Tomlyn disputed the allegation she hit him with the ball intentionally.

After leaving Bullock the night he died, Chloe and Tomlyn ran out of gas near Walsh Ranch Parkway and Interstate 30, on the Parker County border, law enforcement records showed.

A Parker County sheriff’s deputy first stopped to check on the stalled vehicle around 2:40 a.m. That deputy reported seeing blood on Chloe and Tomlyn. He also reported that both women appeared intoxicated.

Tomlyn and Chloe declined medical attention, but they told the deputy that Bullock had assaulted them earlier at Billy Bob’s.

Because of where the alleged assault took place and because the car was still in Fort Worth jurisdiction, the Parker County deputy contacted Fort Worth police, and an officer later arrived on the scene.

That officer’s report said Chloe and Tomlyn told the sheriff’s deputy they fled after Bullock assaulted them. The officer also quoted Chloe as admitting she beat Bullock up “because he was drunk in public, and it was embarrassing.”

Like the Parker County deputy, the Fort Worth officer also believed Chloe and Tomlyn were intoxicated, according to the report, and he noted they were “verbally combative” when asked about the incident with Bullock.

The officer reported that Chloe had bruising on her upper right arm and dried blood on her right hand. Tomlyn, the officer reported, had more extensive injuries and dried blood on her face.

Photos included with the police report showed Chloe with blood around her knuckles. Tomlyn had blood on her nose and around her mouth.

According to the police report, neither Chloe nor Tomlyn would provide written statements. Finally, another Fort Worth police officer who was near the end of his shift drove them home to Weatherford.

Video taken from inside that officer’s car showed Chloe at first laughing and Tomlyn joking about how hard the seat is in the back of the cruiser. Tomlyn then asks if Chloe is cold.

“I’m shivering from everything,” Chloe responded.

During the drive, Tomlyn alluded to Bullock biting her lip during the altercation earlier in the night, and Chloe said he’d bitten her before and that it was “scary.”

“And you think that’s OK?” Tomlyn asked, to which Chloe shook her head no. “Chloe, you’ve got to get this guy out of your life, dude,” Tomlyn continued.

During the conversation, Tomlyn repeatedly encouraged Chloe to break things off with Blake, saying their infant son deserved better and that the relationship was “toxic.” At one point, Tomlyn told Chloe to move and get a new phone number in order to stay away from Bullock.

While Tomlyn spoke, Chloe listened and seemed to agree.

“I wish I just would have not gone out tonight,” Chloe said.

“I just wish you would have never put so much faith in him,” Tomlyn replied, referring to Bullock. She later tells Chloe that she loved her so much that she “took an a– beating for you tonight, by a man.”

At no time does either woman appear to think Bullock may be dead. In fact, Tomlyn said she’d “kill him” if he showed up at the apartment.

“And you can quote me on that, cop,” she declared before laughing.

Tomlyn told the Star-Telegram she and Chloe let police know where they’d left Bullock. She also said she intended to go back and get him before running out of gas.

“I feel awful for leaving him,” Tomlyn said, though she added she did what she did to protect her daughter. When talking about Bullock’s death, Tomlyn got emotional. But she said what happened was “divine intervention” to end what by all accounts was a troubled relationship.

“If he wasn’t dead, she would be,” Tomlyn said.

Tomlyn strongly denied she left Bullock for dead on Northwest 20th Street. She said he could have gotten up and moved had he wanted to.

“I did not hurt that kid,” Tomlyn said. “I did not leave him on the side of the road dead … I did not kill that kid.”

After reviewing the available evidence, Falk, who previously worked as a prosecutor in Harris County and Dallas County, agreed with the Fort Worth Police Department’s decision to not file charges against Chloe and Tomlyn. First, Falk said, it would be nearly impossible to prove they had assaulted Bullock based on the surveillance footage, mainly because it’s unclear who the initial aggressor was in the altercation.

“In order to charge somebody with assault, you need to be able to disprove self-defense,” said Falk. And any claim of self-defense by Tomlyn or Chloe could be bolstered by Bullock’s prior domestic violence charge, Falk added.

Second, Falk said an assault charge would require proof of bodily injury. Given what happened to Bullock, it would be difficult to prove what injuries he sustained in the fight and what injuries he sustained from the vehicle.

As for Chloe and Tomlyn leaving Bullock in the road, Falk said she didn’t believe a crime was committed, especially if Chloe and Tomlyn argued that they feared for their safety. And based on the video taken from inside the police car on the ride from Fort Worth to Weatherford, it doesn’t look as though the McDonalds thought Bullock was seriously injured, so it would be hard to prove they had a legal obligation to render aid.

A mother’s search for answers

Spurlock and Chloe said separately they learned of Bullock’s death when they called the Tarrant County morgue after he didn’t come home and hadn’t phoned anyone.

Spurlock said she has been grieving ever since. She called Bullock her precious boy, and she took great care with placing the memorial where he died, hoping his memory will live on in that spot as it does in her heart. But dealing with the loss has only gotten harder, not easier, over the past year, Spurlock said.

Finding closure is understandably difficult given the circumstances. Spurlock wonders how Atkins missed seeing her son lying in the road. And she still questions what occurred during the fight outside the car between Bullock, Tomlyn and Chloe.

If Spurlock had those answers, she could move on. But she doesn’t. After initially releasing some records related to Bullock’s death to Spurlock, the city of Fort Worth has denied her more recent requests.

Chloe, too, said the last several months have been hard. She said she loved Bullock and called him her best friend. She told the Star-Telegram she fell into a depression after he died and had only recently come out of it.

Even Garcia, the man who called 911, said that night haunts him. He stopped by when Spurlock and Bullock’s friends were putting up the memorial and talked with them awhile, though he wasn’t sure what to say to comfort Spurlock.

In Falk’s estimation, Bullock’s death was the result of a tragic set of circumstances that aligned in the worst possible way.

Was Bullock the aggressor in the fight with Chloe and Tomlyn, and was he simply too intoxicated to get out of the road after the women left him? Or was there more to it?

“This case has a lot of puzzle pieces in order to really understand what happened,” Falk said. “And many of them are just missing.”