A police chief is supposed to have the backs of his officers. When they do wrong he is supposed to punish them. And he is right in condemning the wrongful actions of an officer from another department like the deadly kneeing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis cop.
Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo was about to be fired from a scandal-ridden Austin Police Department when he was rescued by Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner. Not the smartest move Old Sly ever made.
Like civil rights activist Jesse Jackson, Acevedo has never passed up a photo-op ever since he became Houston’s top cop. He made a compete fool of himself when he appeared before the TV cameras to address the botched Harding Street raid.
Lately Acevedo has been photographed marching arm in arm with the George Floyd protesters, kneeling with them and hugging them. He is too stupid to realize the protests are not just about Floyd’s death, but that the protesters are also demonstrating against what Black Lives Matter claims is systemic police brutality against blacks and institutional police racism. By demonstrating with the protesters, Acevedo appears to agree with the false accusations by Black Lives Matter.
Acevedo’s participation in the protests even got him an interview on NBC’s Today show. Now that was a photo-op he’ll really relish the rest of his life. And it probably made Old Sly proud too.
As a former law enforcement officer and criminal justice professor, I worked with many law enforcement agencies, including the Los Angeles and Houston police departments. Yes, there are racist cops, but I can assure you that there is no systemic police brutality or institutional police racism. Some have accused me of being unwilling to recognize racism when I see it, but believe me, I do recognize bigotry and discrimination where and when it occurs.
Civil rights activist Jesse Jackson and race-baiter Al Sharpton who coined the phrase “No Justice – No Peace” can be expected to march in lockstep with the protesters, but in his role as Chief of the Police, Acevedo is not a civil rights activist.
In Houston, the police have shot dead six men in six weeks, five of them black or Latino. The cops did not shoot them because they were black or Latino, but because at the time they were perceived to be an imminent threat to the lives of the officers. The families of the deceased claim the shootings were not necessary.
What did Acevedo do in his latest photo-op? He hugged some of the family members of the six men killed by his officers.
Acevedo is too ignorant to realize that by hugging the family members he appears to be agreeing with them that his officers should not have killed the six men. How do you think that makes Houston’s cops feel?
The poor excuse for a police chief should have been canned after the Harding Street fiasco, but it looks like as long as Sly Turner is mayor, we will be stuck with dickhead Acevedo.
Art Acevedo might be not be the Police Chief after Turner leaves office….He might be the Mayor of Houston.
By golly, Tom, you may be right. We had one clown of a police chief – Out of Town Brown – and he became mayor.
Yep, Acevedo destoys Kubosh. Or Knox.
Acevedo is no clown IMHO. HPOU, Reoublucans, and maybe HPFFA dont like him, but that probably gives Kubosh 30%
There’s a reason I moved out of COH years ago and am not considering returning, EVER.
Leftists are hot and heavy to ‘defund the police.’ Well, the Kubosh brothers were instrumental in getting rid of the hated red light cameras that Bill White brought us. Anyone who believes the police should be defunded should be definitely voting for Kubosh, for that reason alone.
This is what the Republican Party has become, bring people in like Bill Daniels who wrote the following.
“… give orders for the soldiers to shoot to kill any person entering the kill zone from the Mexican side, period. Women? Children? Old people? Military age males? Waste anyone that crosses from Mexico into the US. Back that up with predator drones . and perhaps an A-10 every 3 or 4 hundred miles, for close air support for larger groups, and you’ve secured the border, with no fences. ”
The Republican solution to all the problems.
“I can assure you that there is no systemic police brutality or institutional police racism.”
That’s some ripe bullshit. Guess you haven’t been pulled over while driving, at the speed limit, in your own neighborhood because you’re Hispanic and happen to live in a upper class white enclave. Happened to me multiple times in Houston when my Hispanic husband was driving his damned Mercedes. Never happened to me, his white wife, born and raised in Texas.
My son was pulled over a good dozen or so times in Williamson county when driving home from work, for no reason, never ticketed, simply pulled over because he was driving while Hispanic.
You cops don’t treat everyone fairly and you definitely profile based on race. The police have a problem. I would suggest the following remedies to fix your broken culture and reduce the level of police involvement in people’s lives ;
End police unions
End qualified immunity.
End civil asset forfeiture.
End the drug war.
End over-criminalization.
End no-knock warrants.
End militarization of police.
End mandatory minimums.
Get some training in basic humanity and stop this Blue Line/Cop Land fucked up mentality that protects bad police instead of being responsive to the entire community that pays the police to be fair, decent public servants to all.
Daphne, after considerable reflection on your wonderful comment, I must confess that I and all the cops I know:
Arrested blacks for doing nothing but being black
Arrested Latinos for doing nothing but being Latinos
Arrested Asians for doing nothing but being Asians
Arrested Jews for doing nothing but being Jews
Arrested Muslims for doing nothing but being Muslims
Arrested Christians for doing nothing but being Christians
Daphne, thank you for letting me see the light.
a noted irony. A story of Houston that applies to all large cities in the US with minor revisions to details.
Democrat former police chief Lee. P. Brown gets elected mayor of Houston in 1997.
In 2001 Mayor Brown promised increases in public employee benefits at a projected cost increase from 10% of payroll to 30% of payroll. This immediately moves majority of city employees into the democrat party in order to keep the promise alive in the future.
2001 to present Mayor Brown and the three mayors following him never paid into the pensions the amount they promised was required. The 8.5% growth in unaccumulated funds of course never returned the contributions needed to provide the benefits that were promised.
Municipal unions and their democrat benefactors continue the charade of promising lavish pensions without funding them. Current Mayor schedules vote for $1billion bond to shore up pensions, wins that vote and provides 6% temporary patch.
Public begins to notice. Population growth flat lines in city while suburbs boom (nationwide phenomena).
Democrats now control large cities throughout nation and have huge constituencies that want to defund the police. Those faithful democrat voters that accepted promises from their democrat leaders now see their jobs in jeopardy with unfunded pensions to show for their loyalty.
(munching popcorn from the cheap seats) “Who could have seen this coming?”
Remember a few days ago when I was the only commentor on Ed Hubbard’s column and said it’s all politics and it ain’t beanbag? Applies here as well.