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Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker during a Fort Worth City Council meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2025.
amccoy@star-telegram.com
Fort Worth City Council member Charles Lauersdorf is supporting Mayor Mattie Parker amid calls for her to apologize for a comment she made at a council meeting last month.
On Sept. 30, Parker accused community activist Patrice Jones of being involved when a casket painted with the names of Atatiana Jefferson and others killed or injured in Fort Worth police shootings was dumped on her front lawn in 2022.
“Patrice, I still have your casket,” Parker said to Jones as Jones left the podium after speaking against a council motion to reduce the number of public comment meetings for the coming year.
Jones denied involvement in the casket incident, and police reports from the time say no one matching Jones’ description was seen on video dropping off the casket. A police report did note, however, that Jones made a Facebook post prior to the incident saying, “Any funeral home willing to allow use of a casket for tomorrow? We also need some buses from some churches.”
E.J. Carrion, host of the 817 podcast, said he and others created a petition urging the city council to push Parker to issue an apology and retract her statement about Jones.
When people signed the petition, Carrion said, it generated emails to council members. Lauersdorf responded to one of those emails — the only one he received, Laudersdorf said — and told the sender he would “stand in solidarity with our duly elected Mayor.”
In the email reply, Laudersdorf also accused Jones of making threats during her remarks on Sept. 30.
“If you guys make it harder for us to talk to ya’ll in spaces like this, then we’re just going to have to come to spaces where you are and make it uncomfortable,” Jones told the mayor and council. “So you may as well give us the opportunity to do what you were elected to do and hear us here so we don’t pop up at your church or where you’re at and make you uncomfortable in your comfortable spaces.”
Additionally, Lauersdorf referred to Jones in his email response as Council Member Deborah Peoples’ “race-baiting mouthpiece.”
Lauersdorf told the Star-Telegram that was in reference to Jones working with Peoples at an organization called By Any Means 104. He also mentioned the shirt Jones wore to the Sept. 30 city council meeting, which read “I am sick of racist white people.”
In a text message, Jones clarified that Peoples is on the advisory board for Southside Community Garden, which Jones founded. Jones said Peoples isn’t involved with By Any Means 104.
Peoples did not immediately respond to a request for comment. When reached by phone, Jones said she was in a meeting and would call back, but she has not yet done so.
“If someone wants to stand with Patrice Jones, that’s their right,” Lauersdorf said in a phone interview. “But it’s my right to stand with the mayor.”
In a phone conversation, Carrion criticized Lauersdorf’s response, saying Lauersdorf didn’t understand the complexities of race relations in Fort Worth.
“The mayor of the 11th largest city is villainizing a Black woman activist,” said Carrion. “There’s history in our past of white women pointing fingers at Black people for crimes they did not do.”
Lauersdorf’s comments in support of Parker follow an Oct. 14 city council public comments meeting when residents showed up in force to condemn Parker’s comments.
Reporter Harrison Mantas contributed to this report.
This story was originally published October 24, 2025 at 5:41 PM.
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