Major Police Agencies at Risk of Takeovers
Is this the first wave of police department takeovers by state agencies and the national guard?
San Francisco, California
California Governor Gavin Newsome, in a press statement issued Friday, April 21, 2023, stated he is assembling a task force, that includes the California Highway Patrol and the California National Guard, to address the 600 overdose deaths annually in San Francisco, particularly in the Tenderloin Area. Details on whether the national guard (CalGuard) will be rolling in convoys to assist in boots-on-the-ground street level assistance have not been shared, but they have been described as key in dismantling trafficking. No one, including the city police chief, Bill Scott, could describe what this effort is going to look like, but he assured the media that all individuals would be treated with dignity and respect.
Mayor London Breed states that she has been seeking help from Sacramento for years. Besides open-air drug markets, the city has a homeless population of over 18,000 and more than 50 blocks of camps on crowded streets. While the city spends over a billion a year on the homeless, the streets are sub-third world deplorable. Three hundred utility poles had to be replaced due to human urine corrosion. Forced sex and overdose deaths occur in public view, even the view of children. So much for dignity and respect.
Someone advised the governor, a former mayor of San Francisco, that the optics of the city and his state would impede seeking higher office. Newsome also just abandoned an effort to create safe injection sites, a harm reduction model that incentivizes further drug abuse.
The city public defender Manu Raju fears this initiative will have unintended consequences.
"No amount of law enforcement will solve what is really a public health crisis," Raju said in a statement. "We know from 50 years of the war on drugs that the people who are likely to be targeted by any forthcoming operations will be in low-income and Black and Brown communities, including those who have been trafficked or coerced into the drug trade under threat to themselves and their families."
If this effort fails, will there be a move to remove law enforcement home rule from Mayor Breed? Given the rules of engagement, laws on the books that many city residents wished they never voted for - including decriminalizing possession of certain drugs, the success of the task force may prove elusive.
Austin, Texas
During late February, Texas Governor Greg Abbott observed the Austin Police Department’s staffing crisis was causing crime to rise, including several highly publicized ‘street takeovers.’ The result was a partnership when he “…requested Texas DPS assist Austin PD through the creation of the Austin Violent Crimes Task Force.”
The police are currently trying to address a staffing crisis where they have a shortfall of about 300 officers and a workforce betrayed by elected city leaders following the 2020 defund the police movement. “The Texas Legislature passed a law in 2021 to prevent cities and counties from cutting their police budgets, largely in response to Austin City Council’s decision to cut $150 million from its police department’s budget. The cuts eliminated 150 officer positions, canceled a trio of cadet classes and moved some police functions to other city agencies. The City Council reversed those cuts the next year.”
"I think that this [DPS task force] was coming regardless of whether the city of Austin agreed to it," [Austin Police Retired Officers Association President Dennis]Farris said.
Not everyone is in favor of the staffing being provided by DPS. "There are more troopers in Montopolis than we have schools," said Susana Almanza, director of People Organized in Defense of Earth and Her Resources (PODER). "There are more troopers in Montopolis than we have playgrounds."
"We know history has taught us and that crime has not been objective," said Almanza. "But as required, crime is being used as a weapon to harass and racial profile our community." Also, the ACLU offers their concerns. "One of our chief concerns with this so-called partnership is the absolute lack of transparency about the partnership itself and lack of accountability measures that community members in Austin have to hold DPS to account when the state’s police is on the city’s streets," ACLU of Texas Staff Attorney Savannah Kumar said.
But the ACLU is wrong. Texas DPS is chartered to practice policing anywhere in the state including the city. Even prior to the task force, if the DPS officer was first on scene, they would be able to take appropriate action. The most concerning fact, is that if there was no more APD, DPS could assume policing there seamlessly. If you disagree, check out what happened in Paterson, New Jersey last month.
Jackson, Mississippi
In Mississippi, we have another state capitol with an expansion of authority for a state police agency. The Capitol Police in Jackson, Mississippi were originally chartered to conduct all policing responsibilities for the state building and some surrounding campuses.
On Friday, April 21, 2023, Governor Tate Reeves signed Senate Bill 2343 authorizing Capitol Police a larger jurisdiction (a defined improvement district within the city limits of Jackson) as well as House Bill 1020 creating a separate court for their criminal process. The City of Jackson Police Department is experiencing both a staffing and recruiting crisis and a serious crime problem. MSNBC reports that the homicide rate at 92.1 is the highest in the country for the second year in a row. While the quantity of murders dropped from 160 to 138 in 2022, the rate by population is more than triple Chicago’s 24.8 per 100,000. Police staffing is short by 110 officers and they are losing more than they are gaining.
Also on Friday, the NAACP sued Governor Reeves. Their complaint accuses,
“…Reeves and other state officials of unfairly singling out Jackson, a predominantly Black city struggling with violent crime and an overburdened court system.” NBC News reports from their complaint that “The new judges will be appointed by the white chief justice of the Supreme Court and the new prosecutors by the white state attorney general. The Capitol Police is run by a white chief who answers to a white public safety commissioner who answers to a white governor.”
Those against the initiative oppose it for the wrong reasons. They miss the real danger, a risk never mentioned in the complaint.
“‘Emergencies’ have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded – and once they are suspended it is not difficult for anyone who has assumed emergency powers to see to it that the emergency will persist.” Friedrich Hayek – Law, Legislation and Liberty, Volume 3, 1979
We must be most concerned if the Capitol Police succeed where the Jackson Police Department continues to fail in crime control and staffing.
If this is the case, and it is likely that it will be, there will be serious questions of the City of Jackson maintaining the department or a takeover by the either the state Capitol Police or a county-city metro agreement.
In all three cities, success is less than certain and their grasp on maintaining home rule is quickly slipping away. Precedents are being set every day and if police executives continue to fail to stand up bravely, they won’t even have a department to lead.
Please remember to keep all law enforcement employees in your prayers!
References:
https://www.gov.ca.gov/2023/04/21/public-safety-partnership-sf/
https://www.fox7austin.com/news/poder-alleged-dps-racial-profiling-city-council-austin-texas
https://www.fox7austin.com/news/apd-texas-dps-joint-operation-latest-numbers-austin
https://www.fox7austin.com/news/texas-dps-presence-police-austin-causes-controversy
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/03/27/texas-dps-austin-police-shortage/
https://www.fox7austin.com/news/austin-police-texas-dps-keeping-austin-safe-partnership
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/03/27/texas-dps-austin-police-shortage/
https://www.fox7austin.com/news/poder-alleged-dps-racial-profiling-city-council-austin-texas
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/naacp-sues-mississippi-expands-capitol-police-jackson-rcna78197
The bills’ proponents said they were trying to help Jackson deal with record spikes in killings and an overburdened court system. Some residents have welcomed the Capitol Police since it began patrolling parts of Jackson beyond state buildings last summer, saying the city needs more police officers because the Jackson Police Department has been understaffed.
https://www.msnbc.com/podcast/into-america/policing-jackson-n1304430
Very good analysis, Roland! I wish it was surprising to me that no one else is talking about the stuff that we are all putting forward, but it’s not. More frightening than the police takeover’s for the smaller agencies by the state agencies, is that this is directly out of the Obama era model for policing based on a national police force hypothesis.
As a change agent, author, and police influencer, aren’t these fun times to live in?
I’ve been saying for a decade that the goal of the left is to create a national police force (Obama and others have stated this is what they want). I think what we are seeing is a foundation being laid to facilitate that to happen in the future.