Dallas medic fired for kicking homeless man has paramedic license suspended

Megan Cardona
Fort Worth Star-Telegram

DALLAS — Within three weeks of being fired after video surfaced of him kicking a homeless man in 2019, former Dallas Fire and Rescue paramedic Brad Cox has had his EMS license suspended.

The Texas Department of State Health Services lists on its website Nov. 3 and Nov. 5 as dates of an emergency suspension of Cox's license. Cox received a reprimand in 2013 and a suspension in 2017 for cases unrelated to the 2019 incident, according to the Texas DSHS website.

In August 2019, Cox along with other Dallas firefighters were responding to a grass fire along Lone Star Drive, which Cox believed a homeless man, Kyle Vess, started, Star-Telegram media partner WFAA previously reported.

In body camera footage obtained by WFAA from Aug. 2, 2019, Cox is seen instructing Vess to get off the ground and then kicks him in the head. Cox was placed on administrative leave following the release of the body camera footage and then fired, according to a report by the Dallas Morning News.

According to the Texas administrative code, an emergency suspension is issued to those with an EMS license if there is reasonable cause to believe the conduct of a licensee creates an imminent danger to public health or safety.

Cox, along with another firefighter, has also been accused of harassing and laughing at a man, Hirschell Wayne Fletcher Jr., who had been beaten and robbed outside of a Dallas soup kitchen in on Dec. 30, 2016, the Star-Telegram previously reported.

A federal lawsuit filed by Fletcher's children says that both Clark and Cox assumed Fletcher was drunk and began to harass and laugh at him as he sat on the sidewalk. They continuously mocked Fletcher for about 15 to 20 minutes, the lawsuit says.

Fletcher was taken by authorities to jail instead of a hospital for treatment and died from his injuries.

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