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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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