Governor Giving Smoke Time to Clear
Before Seize on Sixth Street Shootings

Capitol Inside
June 12, 2021

Governor Greg Abbott praised local law enforcement and promised on Saturday to pray with his wife for the victims of the latest Texas mass shooting that left 14 people injured early this morning while partying on Sixth Street in downtown Austin. The wailing about police defunding should get under way bright and early on Sunday.

The Republican governor will be blaming liberal Democratic local leaders for the violence that erupted several blocks from the Governor's Mansion about 1:30 a.m. when two gunman opened fire on a crowd in the heart of the central entertainment district.

Abbott and the Republicans will be telling the Austin Democrats that they told them so with warnings last year about spikes in violent crime as a consequence of a city council vote in response to the George Floyd killing by police in Minneapolis and protests that it sparked here.

The melee in the Capital City this weekend has given GOP leaders and lawmakers a timely stage on which to tout with a new ban on budget reductions for police in the largest Texas cities. The Austin council vote had been the catalyst for the police defunding plan that cleared the Legislature with united support from the majority party as one of the original Abbott emergencies for the 2021 regular session. Abbott signed the proposal in Senate Bill 23 into law on June 1 - the day after the session adjourned.

The timing of the attack and its circumstances couldn't be better for the Republicans in terms of advertising value for the narrative they've used to sell the police defunding prohibition. Abbott and the Republicans will roll out an array of stats on local police vacancies going unfilled as a product of progressives who run the city.

Abbott might even see the Sixth Street shooting as an opportunity to resurrect a plan to have the state take over the local police force in Austin. Abbott had announced the police jurisdiction shift plan with fanfare before watching it die in silence without a vote.

The governor's attempt to blame local law enforcement cuts for the attack this weekend will be disingenuous at best - especially when considering the gallant way the Austin police who'd been assigned to the crowded party district responded to the outbreak of violence that they'd been trained in advance to handle.

With Sixth Street quickly roaring back to life in recent weeks with packed crowds and no masks, the police presence has appeared to be higher than ever there, with officers heavily armed and equipped for riot conditions. Austin police officers and other emergency responders appeared to save countless lives with a response that was far more effective than those in mass shootings in El Paso, Sutherland Springs and Santa Fe in recent years.

An unusually high number of officers in the area didn't serve as a deterrent to the Sixth Street shooters. But that won't stop the governor, who's been on a recent attention-seeking binge, from claiming that the violence was a direct product of the police spending vote here that he and other Republicans consistently misportrayed during the battle at the Capitol on SB 23.

Abbott appeared to be giving the shock a day to wear off with a statement on Saturday.

“The Texas Department of Public Safety is working closely with Austin Police to respond to this shooting and ensure that the perpetrators are captured and punished to the fullest extent of the law," Abbott said. "Thank you to APD and first responders for quickly responding to the scene and saving lives. Cecilia and I ask our fellow Texans to join us in prayer for those who were injured.”

more to come ...