Fort Worth activists say Abbott’s proposal on police defunding is ‘a slap in the face’
Fort Worth groups that have been calling for police reform condemned Gov. Greg Abbott’s announcement on Tuesday of a legislative proposal to discourage cities from defunding law enforcement.
At a press conference in Fort Worth, Abbott announced a legislative proposal to freeze a city’s property tax revenue if the city defunds its law enforcement.
Abbott was joined by Republican representatives, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, House Speaker Dennis Bonnen and Mayor Betsy Price.
In Fort Worth, two organizations born from the George Floyd protests have been pushing for police and criminal justice reform. Leaders from Enough is Enough and United My Justice were critical of Abbott’s proposal.
Carol Harrison-Lafayette, one leader of United My Justice, said protesters feel like Abbott is trying to control local police reform and is not listening to citizens’ concerns. For him to come to Fort Worth, where seven people were shot by city police last year, was a “slap in the face” to citizens, she said.
“The city of Fort Worth has a lot of pain and disappointment in the way it’s being policed,” Harrison-Lafayette said Wednesday. “That puts a lot of pain in what happened yesterday.”
She specifically mentioned the fatal shooting of Atatiana Jefferson by Fort Worth officer Aaron Dean, which sparked protests in Fort Worth. Dean resigned from the police department and is awaiting trial on a murder charge.
Enough is Enough co-founder Kwame Osei Jr. said he feels that Abbott “just strong-armed all mayors in the state of Texas.”
“He basically blackmailed any mayor who wants to see a different kind of change,” Osei said.
Osei explained that Enough is Enough members don’t want to see the Fort Worth Police Department disbanded — they want to see it reformed. Increased policing in Fort Worth will not lead to less crime, he said, and would further police brutality against people of color.
“Police brutality has been a reality for Black and brown people since the creation of the police,” Osei said. “If that foundation is not stable, the house will crumble. You can’t patch the foundation and think it will continue to allow the house to stand.”
Enough is Enough and United My Justice have met with Police Chief Ed Kraus and Mayor Price to discuss changes the group wants to see in Fort Worth and law enforcement. Harrison-Lafayette said they have had meaningful conversations about local change, and Abbott should not try to control cities’ police reform.
“What Greg Abbott has done is he is using his strong hand to abuse his authority as a governor,” she said. “He has overlooked what the younger generation and voters of Texas have said.”
Osei and Harrison-Lafayette said the announcement, and Price’s participation in it, will not keep their respective groups from sitting down with the leaders and continuing those talks.
“We are willing to put our feelings away for the betterment of our community,” he said.
After the press conference, Price said while she understands the concerns about the community’s relationship with the Fort Worth Police Department, “we will not defund our police to solve those issues.”
“Cities that are dismantling their police departments are putting their citizens at risk,” she said.
Abbott said that defunding the police would cause “lawlessness in our cities” and “chaos.”
What defund the police means
Pamela Young, a community activist with United Fort Worth, a local grassroots organization, said Abbott took the term “defund the police” out of context to further his own political agenda.
While “defund the police” has become a politically charged term, most activists do not aim to disband police departments or remove all public funding from law enforcement. Rather, the idea is to reallocate resources — including money — from the police department to other areas of the community, Young said.
In Austin, city council members voted unanimously on a budget that cuts the Austin Police Department’s budget by $150 million. That money will instead go toward hiring more paramedics, mental health response teams and social services such as workforce development and housing services for the homeless, Austin Mayor Steve Adler said on Twitter.
Deborah Peoples, head of the Tarrant County Democratic Party, agreed with Young that Abbott misrepresented what defund the police means.
“It was totally disgusting,” she said Tuesday. “What Abbott did today was nothing more than a publicity stunt.”
She said reinvesting in social programs would help communities and police departments because police would be relieved of some duties, such as responding to mental health calls, and instead be able to focus on “what they were hired to do.”
Kraus and the city manager’s office proposed to City Council on Friday that some Crime Control and Prevention District tax funding be redirected to nonprofits, civilian response teams and other alternatives to traditional policing.
“Nobody is saying do away with police,” Peoples said. “We need police.”
Young said in Fort Worth, communities that have more resources — not more police officers — are safer. Resources might include affordable housing, proper health care, grocery stores, education and safe public spaces.
“So that is what defund the police means,” Young said. “It means to divest from overpolicing, divest from an overpolicing of our Black and brown neighborhoods, and invest in resources that will cause our Black and brown neighborhoods to thrive.”
Police Chief Ed Kraus proposed to City Council on Friday that some CCPD funding be redirected to nonprofits, civilian response teams and other alternatives to traditional policing.
Price pointed to the recent Crime Control and Prevention District tax vote as evidence that Fort Worth wants to invest in law enforcement. But Young said the vote is not representative of Fort Worth.
While the tax passed with 65% of the vote, only 7% of Fort Worth’s population voted. Fort Worth historically has low voter turnout for local elections.
This story was originally published August 19, 2020 at 4:43 PM.
