A new twist on an old story

I’ve been writing the same story for years (though not so often as to annoy readers, I hope). Police forces in big cities are shrinking and, not coincidentally, crime in these cities is soaring.

You would think that something has to give. Surely, cities have to find a way to increase the number of law enforcement officers patrolling their streets in order to avoid a descent into something resembling anarchy in poor neighborhoods. Yet, police forces keep shrinking — or at least aren’t recovering from previous shrinkages — probably because the left has made the job so unattractive. And crime keeps rising.

But now, something has “given” is Austin, Texas (of all places). Texas state troopers have poured into this quintessentially progressive city at the request of its mayor. They’ve been assisting with law enforcement, and violent crime has been reduced —reportedly by about 25 percent.

Might this be the wave of the future? Maybe.

But one incident of possible misconduct by troopers in Austin, in which no one was injured, has caused the mayor to balk. He and Texas governor Abbott are in a standoff about whether, in spite of all the good they have done, the troopers will remain.

Here’s the story. Austin’s police force of less than 2,000 was about 300 officers short. Consequently, it was unable to patrol the city and respond in timely fashion to 911 calls.

The city’s mayor, a Democrat but not a hard leftist (he narrowly defeated one in the primary), addressed the problem by enlisting Texas’ Republican lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick. The state agreed to send in 100 troopers and special agents.

Thanks to the influx of these troopers and agents, Austin’s violent crime rate dropped and 911 response times improved. The Times quotes a few residents who testify to the positive difference the state troopers made.

Said one:

My roommate and I used to get our packages stolen almost every time we got something delivered. And in the last couple months, that has stopped.

Imagine. From third world living to normal in just a few months.

Another resident, a Hispanic male, welcomed the deployment even as a trooper wrote him a ticket. “Things are sketchy out here,” he observed.

Inevitably, though, the usual suspects pushed back against the presence of troopers. Initially, they complained that the troopers were deployed primarily in black and Hispanic neighborhoods and that most of those arrested by the troopers were black and Hispanic.

The deployment made sense because these neighborhoods were where most of the 911 calls and crime reports came from. Nonetheless, to appease Austin’s liberals the troopers were spread out over the city — and most of those arrested still were black and Hispanic. Go figure.

Next, also inevitably in my view, a few encounters between troopers and citizens ended badly. A trooper fatally shot a suspect following a chase. But the shooting appears to be fully justified because the suspect reportedly fired shots at the police during the chase. And afterwards, when he got out of his car, he pointed his weapons at troopers.

Next, a trooper shot at an unarmed man who was fleeing after crashing his car. The suspect, was hit in the arm. Reportedly, he was a gang member who had a warrant out for his arrest.

Finally, during a traffic stop, troopers pointed their weapons at a father and his 10-year-old son. The troopers were in the process of pulling over the father because his vehicle had no plates. They drew their guns when the boy got out of the car.

After this last incident, the mayor suspended the partnership with the state police. Apparently, in the mayor’s eyes, these incidents, only one of which seems problematic to me, outweighed the benefits of a 25 percent reduction in violent crime and a substantial reduction of 911 response times.

The eyes of Governor Greg Abbott viewed it differently. He not only ordered the troopers to remain in Austin, he called for a fresh deployment of a few dozen more.

Now, says the Times:

Austin has entered an uncertain and uneasy new period in which two separate law enforcement agencies, with differing approaches to policing, are patrolling the streets without formal coordination. One answers to city leaders. The other to Mr. Abbott.

This isn’t ideal, but it’s probably preferable to having the Austin police force radically understaffed, resulting in more violent crime, painfully slow responses to 911 calls, and the kind of lawlessness exemplified by the constant stealing of packages.

Meanwhile in Houston, a leading Democratic candidate for mayor has said that, if elected, he will welcome 200 state troopers into the city to assist its police department in combating violent crime. During the pandemic, when this candidate was in the state legislature, he worked out an arrangement with Gov. Abbott and Houston’s police chief in which state troopers came to the city to fight crime in focused areas and to curb gang violence.

The then-police chief says the troopers had a positive impact. The Austin police chief appears to have the same view of what’s happened in his city, although he isn’t pleased with the current arrangement in which there is no longer coordination between his force and the state troopers.

Regardless of how the Houston election and the Austin power struggle play out, I still say that when crime truly plagues a city something has to give, eventually. If politicians in crime-ridden jurisdictions can’t adequately staff their police forces, they will face pressure to get help from the state. If they resist that pressure, they risk defeat at the hands of voters. And governors in conservative states might well follow Abbott’s example.

It will be better if local officials cooperate with the state, although in cities as leftist as Austin this may not be possible for very long.