GIG 'EM GREG

Texas Governor Greg Abbott vows to sign bill that will STOP cities from defunding police

 

By Snejana Farberov 

 

Daily Mail

May 24, 2021

 

 

 

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has vowed to sign a bill into law that would punish the  state's largest cities if they decide to follow Austin and 'defund' their local police departments.

In a tweet sent out on Sunday, the Republican governor cited a shooting incident in Austin, where it allegedly took police officers 16 minutes to respond to the crime scene and render aid to a person who had been shot in the head.

'This is what defunding the police looks like,' Abbott wrote. 'Austin is incapable of timely responding to a victim shot in the head.'

He continued: 'Texas won't tolerate this. We're about to pass law-that I will sign-that will prevent cities from defunding police. Sanity & safety will return.'

The conservative governor was weighing in on a tweet from Kenneth Casaday, the president of the Austin Police Association, which slammed Austin Police Department's response time to a shooting that took place on Sunday.

According to Casaday, a 911 call about the shooting was received at 5.35am on Sunday, but there were no units available citywide for the next 12 minutes.

The police union boss clamed that the first patrol unit picked up the call at 5.47am and arrived on the scene 16 minutes later.

'Victim critically injured after being shot in the head,' he wrote.

According to a report from the station KXAN, a man was shot at 5.35am in the parking lot of the Bare Cabaret in the 9000 block of Reservoir Court.

A woman was inside the car with the victim at the time of the shooting. So far, no arrests have been made.

DailyMail.com on Monday reached out to the Austin Police Department, seeking comment about the incident and the purported delayed response.

 

 

The Austin City Council voted last year to divert up to $150million from the city's police department, reported Austin American Statesman, but ultimately the agency had its operational budget slashed only by about $21.5million. 

The Texas House of Representatives last week passed House Bill 1900 that would punish big cities for reallocating funding from their police departments, and a Texas Senate committee is currently debating the bill.

So far, only Austin has diverted money from the police toward social services.

Under the new legislation, which was passed by a 90-49 vote, if any Texas city with a population of at least 250,000 decides to cut its police budget without making proportional reductions to other parts of its budget, the state would take a portion of the city's sales tax revenue and hand it over to the State Department of Public Safety. 

The bill would also prevent those cities from raising property taxes or utility rates to make up for the forcibly reallocated sales tax revenue. 

Abbott has repeatedly railed against Austin City Council for diverting the funds away from its police department at the height of last year's protests against systemic racism in the wake of George Floyd's murder by Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin,   

If passed by the Texas Senate and signed into law by Abbott, the law would take effect on September 1.