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A new report offers a comprehensive survey of mistakes law enforcement made during the mass shooting that killed 21 people at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. Among its major revelations: a Uvalde police officer reportedly asked a supervisor for permission to shoot the suspect before he entered the school, missing an opportunity to take him out.
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A San Antonio activist is heading to the White House this week to celebrate the passage of the first major gun reform bill in the U.S. in decades. Bennie Price, who was incarcerated for murder at 18, opened Big Mama’s Safe House on the East Side last year to serve as a safe haven for people experiencing gun violence. He’ll join other activists and lawmakers at an event commemorating the signing of the bill.
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Gov. Greg Abbott last week said he’ll begin expelling migrants from Texas in violation of federal law. Abbott, who’s running for re-election this fall against Beto O’Rourke, ordered the Texas National Guard and the Department of Public Safety to return migrants who cross the border into the state illegally back to border checkpoints even though the federal government has jurisdiction over immigration matters. A federal lawsuit is likely forthcoming.
The U.S. Department of Justice has launched an investigation into alleged civil rights violations committed as part of Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star immigration crackdown. Scandal has plagued the $3 billion scheme since its inception — and the DOJ now is reportedly investigating whether agents illegally detained migrants based on their “perceived or actual race or national origin.” — Abe Asher
YOU SAID IT!
“Gov. Abbott and Lt. Gov. Patrick are declaring open season on defenseless migrants and endangering millions of other Latinos and others who will be profiled along the way.” — Rodolfo Rosales Jr.
Texas LULAC State Director
ASSCLOWN ALERT
Throwing the “I” word around with Texas Republicans Assclown Alert is a column of opinion, analysis and snark. In the summer of 2019, days after a gunman motivated by racial hatred killed 23 people in an El Paso Walmart, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott opened a public safety roundtable by admitting “mistakes were made” when his campaign sent out a letter full of anti-immigrant rhetoric a day before the mass shooting. While not quite an apology, it was an acknowledgement by the Republican governor that the claims in his fundraising letter sounded awful close to the language of the shooter, who posted an online screed warning of a “Hispanic invasion” of the state. Since then, the “I” word has crept into the day-to-day language of top Texas Republicans, including Abbott, who used it to justify an order last week allowing state authorities to expel undocumented migrants in likely violation of U.S. law. Around the same time, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick invoked the “invasion” rhetoric on Fox News, claiming the U.S. is being “attacked just as we were on Pearl Harbor.” Further, he argued, Texas should “put hands on people” and force them back across the border. Not to be outdone, U.S. Rep. Chip Roy also appeared on Fox News, arguing that by calling the surge in border crossings an “invasion” Texas can justify enforcing immigration law, something that falls under federal jurisdiction. All three men know that words matter. All
Beto O’Rourke has narrowed Gov. Greg Abbott’s lead in the gubernatorial race to six points, a new poll from the Texas Politics Project (TPP) at the University of Texas at Austin has found. Though Abbott has led in every public poll of the race so far, his favorability in the TPP poll is at its lowest point ever — with significantly more voters disapproving than approving of his handling of gun violence and abortion. A Texas state program will administer $180 million in grants to help the travel and tourism industries recover from the worst effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using federal funds made available in the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act, the state began taking applications last week for one-time grants of up to $20,000 for businesses like restaurants and hotels that were forced to temporarily close or scale back during the global health crisis.
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That Rocks/That Sucks
Wikimedia Commons / Ruperto Miller
three men know that words have consequences. Beyond holding political office, Abbott and Roy are attorneys, while Patrick rose to prominence as a talk radio personality. And at least one of the three, Abbott, has publicly acknowledged the hatred and violence anti-immigrant rhetoric can inspire. Even so, they and Texas Republicans have chosen to ignore those harms because they’re more concerned about pandering to the xenophobes, hatemongers and extremists in their own party. That may be how political calculus works in 2022, but it still makes them racist assclowns. — Sanford Nowlin
The Tejano Music Awards are coming to San Antonio’s new Tech Port Center + Arena in November. The event’s organizers last week unveiled plans for the first in-person edition of the awards since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. In previous years, the awards were held at the Alamodome. — Abe Asher
Bryan Rindfuss
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