Five things we could do now for police reform in Houston

Seems like a good list to me.

Five city council members on Monday sent a letter to Mayor Sylvester Turner outlining police reforms they said Houston can implement immediately, including a “complete overhaul” of the Independent Police Oversight Board, a cite-and-release ordinance and incentive pay for officers who live within city limits.

In the letter, Councilmembers Edward Pollard, Tiffany Thomas, Jerry Davis, Martha Castex-Tatum, and Carolyn Evans-Shabazz say the oversight board, which reviews probes by the Houston Police Department’s Internal Affairs Division, needs a reboot.

“We are convinced there must be a complete overhaul of the Independent Police Oversight Board (IPOB),” the letter says. “We have no confidence in the current format. We must create a structure of guidelines that governs the function of the new board to restore public trust with public input.”

They recommended the board have complete autonomy and investigative authority, with full access to all unclassified information from HPD.

The council members also say the city could implement an online, independently-maintained dashboard showing complaints of police misconduct, HPD policies, guidelines, “and other relevant information.”

“This platform will be an innovative measure to not only hold officers accountable for misconduct, but will increase police community relations by being transparent in a data driven fashion,” the letter said.

The letter outlines 25 items they asked be included in the next contract between the city and the Houston Police Officers’ Union.

See here and here for some background. There’s a copy of the letter embedded in the story, or you can see it here. The letter does not mention any budget items and also does not contain the signature of CM Letitia Plummer, who unsuccessfully introduced an amendment to this fiscal year’s budget to redirect some funding for HPD to other services, as well as other reforms. I honestly don’t know what capacity exists to amend the city’s budget during the fiscal year, so it may be that that’s a moot point. As for who did and didn’t sign this letter, in the absence of any Council members commenting on it all we can do is speculate.

As we know, individual Council members cannot introduce an ordinance for debate on their own, so whether or not anything happens here is up to Mayor Turner. We are due to get the vaunted Task Force recommendations in the next week or two, and I’m guessing Mayor Turner will prefer to use that as a starting point for whatever he wants to achieve. You can always call his office, as well as your district Council member and the five At Larges to let them know what you think.

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12 Responses to Five things we could do now for police reform in Houston

  1. David Fagan says:

    HAHAHAHA, “call his office”, HAHAHAHA, “LET HIM KNOW WHAT YOU THINK”! Oh, Kuff, you just so REDICULOUS!

    When the mayor says he is sending that list of 25 suggestions to the ‘task force’, it’s code for he’s throwing it in the trash.

    The council members need more power than just the ability to tag something till next week.

  2. Bill Daniels says:

    Task Force recommendation # 1: Remove Houston Police Officer’s Memorial from Eleanor Tinsley Park.

    The memorial is offensive to Houston’s criminal-American community and should be immediately taken down, maybe replaced with a statue of George Kirby. It’s an equity issue.

  3. brad says:

    Bill,

    Are you paid in US $ or Russian rubles for your “work”?

  4. Jules says:

    Bill, how is your quest to get 100 statues of Jerry Falwell jr all across Texas going? I do hope some of them include his wife and the pool boy.

  5. C.L. says:

    Brad/Jules, now you’re trolling him ?

  6. Manny says:

    C.L. now you are trolling Bills so call trolls, thus you call them?

  7. Bill Daniels says:

    Remember when Trump predicted that leftists would eventually want to tear down ALL statues of historical figures? Remember when he said y’all would come for Washington, Jefferson, etc.? Remember when y’all laughed and said that was crazy talk?

    Well, here we are….not so crazy after all.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/09/02/removing-washington-monument-jefferson-memorial-historians/

    The current unrest isn’t about blacks at all. Blacks are just the excuse to have a ‘color revolution’ in the US and for Marxists to take over. The BLM founders freely admit they are trained Marxists. The woman in charge of fundraising for BLM is literally a convicted domestic terrorist let go by Clinton in a pardon frenzy. It’s the BLM and their backers that are causing racial strife, in order to further the Marxist goal.

    I just can’t believe that all of you guys are actively and intentionally supporting a Marxist takeover of our country. Erasing our country’s history is a classic Marxist technique, yet you guys won’t call out any of the destruction. Abolitionists? Stevie Ray Vaughn? Christopher Columbus? Now our country’s founders?

    I am guessing a lot of y’all are around my age. I didn’t grow up with “critical race theory.” I wasn’t brought up to hate America, hate myself, or hate Americans who looked different than me, and I doubt most of you were either. Be honest, think back….you didn’t always hate America, did you? You didn’t always support knocking down statues and renaming buildings and streets, did you? You were all high school kids once, out having fun with your friends. I assume everyone here attended college. Did you learn to hate America then? When did it happen?

  8. Jules says:

    Sorry, CL, back to ignoring.

  9. Bill Daniels says:

    LOL, Jules. I know you call out my name when your ‘life partner’ takes you from behind at night. I’d say I’m flattered, but, well, sorry, I don’t swing that way. But you do you, OK?

    LOL!

  10. Manny says:

    Bill you sound desperate, I guess all those latest polls are spooking the Russian lovers, like you.

  11. robert says:

    Bill, leave your wet dreams to yourself…..no one is calling out your name, especially in the bedroom.

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