June 15, 2021      4:44 PM
Keel and Wilson: After mass shooting, Abbott should consider putting Austin public safety on special session call
Former Representatives Terry Keel and Ron Wilson say the legislature needs to understand that anything short of exercising its authority to place both the management and budget of the Austin Police under DPS, the capital city is going to continue to deteriorate
A few blocks south of the
capitol this past weekend, in a devolving, crime-ridden capital city, fourteen ordinary, no doubt bi-partisan citizen-revelers were
shot. One of the victims has died,
another is paralyzed. Criminals don’t care whether
victims are a republican or a democrat.
The mass shooting
overshadowed a young woman’s murder and other aggravated assaults in Austin the
same weekend, destined to be mere footnotes in an upward violent crime
trajectory where 2021 is portending to see a 100% increase in Austin homicides
compared to recent years.
The chaos reflects a
broken, dysfunctional local government.
In the legislative session
that just ended, legislators took a couple of modest steps to try and fix
Austin, notably de-incentivizing future defunding of police budgets and placing
statewide restrictions on the City of Austin-created insane policy that
incentivized homelessness through public camping. But the fixes aren’t
going to work.
By Terry Keel and Ron Wilson
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