Other than Greg Abbott, anyway.
State and Harris County law enforcement will join forces on a task force aimed at cracking down on repeat violent offenders, whom police leaders say are fueling much of the region’s crime problem, Gov. Greg Abbott announced at a Wednesday news conference.
The task force will help pool resources and go after repeat offenders through a combination of extra patrols in high-crime areas, additional investigative resources and new intelligence strategies, said Freeman Martin, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety.
“This is an all-in effort from law enforcement across the entire county,” Abbott said.
But it’s not yet clear exactly what the initiative might entail, or how long it might continue.
Abbott’s acknowledged crime was going down in Houston and said he has a positive relationship with many local leaders, including Houston Mayor John Whitmire. But the task force will help drive down crime further, Abbott argued.
“Citizens in the area remain concerned about crime,” Abbott said.
[…]
The new task force model is coming to Houston first because of state leaders’ positive relationship with local law enforcement and leaders, but Abbott said he expected other counties, large and small, across Texas, might receive similar attention in the future.
Abbott shot down a question about whether the initiative might’ve been aimed at staving off President Donald Trump’s administration from sending military into Harris County, saying the president knows the situation is under control locally.
[…]
Sydney Zuiker, Houston Crime Stoppers senior director of programs and special projects, and Houston Police Officers Union Executive Director Ray Hunt said they had data showing repeat offenders were driving a majority of crime in Harris County.
Abbott didn’t say whether the initiative would include additional funding or bring in more officers, instead describing it as a pooling of resources to focus on repeat offenders.
“Houston can be the national model of major American cities,” Abbott said.
Representatives of several constable’s offices, the Harris County Sheriff’s Office and the Houston Police Department attended Wednesday’s news conference, standing behind the governor. Officials with the Harris County District Attorney’s Office confirmed ahead of the news conference that they hadn’t been invited.
Not present at this press event announcing this amorphous and metric-free task force: The Mayor, the Sheriff, the District Attorney, the Chief of Police, any of the elected Constables. I can feel the hot waves of collaboration and synergy all the way from my house.
I mean, there may be some meetings at which some people agree to some things that may have some crime-fighting benefit. I could see that happening. Maybe they’ll publish a report and post about it on Twitter. Or maybe the press conference that announced this bag of slurry was the whole point, and now Greg Abbott is free to go do something he actually cares about, like sit in a luxury box for a UT football game. Your state leadership, hard at work over here.
While crime is down from some unspecified point in time, many still think it is too high. Perhaps that is from all the media accounts of criminal activity or maybe it is just the boogeyman politicians regularly rely on to scare voters for votes. This latest initiative sounds like justification for all the usual players to cash in, from the cops getting 37% raises, their union getting a blank check when it comes to their members misdeeds, and crime stoppers profiteering because reports of crime translate into bigger hauls for their donation drives.
I’d like to see the union’s data given their wilder speculations of the past, maybe even see their reasoning regarding past offenders too. The data available shows no specific suspects for the super majority of reported crimes. Just claiming some generic, hispanic looking male with a white t-shirt and blue jeans or a dark skinned black male who looked suspicious should not be grounds for throwing out the rulebook as these groups have advocated for years.
Not inviting a representative from the DA’s office, the Public Defender’s office, or any of the elected judges tells me all I really need to see this is a dog and pony show.
Governor[sic] Abbott’s action does indeed appear to be a dog and pony show with racist undertones. The Governor[sic] suppressed the votes of District 18’s 788,000 residents, setting the stage for this kind of suspicious “assistance.” Were the Mayor, et al absent in protest when Abbott announced his intrusive plan? Or, we’re they quietly submitting to yet another power grab?