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Three Texas police officers charged with murder after fatally shooting woman
Three police officers in San Antonio, Texas, are facing murder charges after fatally shooting a woman in her apartment during a confrontation early Friday.The woman, 46-year-old Melissa Perez, was having what appeared to be a “mental health crisis” when officers encountered her and shot her dead, San Antonio police department (SAPD) chief William McManus said on Friday at a news conference.Police had been called to her apartment complex about 2am after reports that she was cutting wires connected to the building’s fire alarm system, according to local TV news state KSAT.Local firefighters initially responded, but officers later approached Perez, who was walking her dog outside, and she ran to her apartment and locked herself inside. As the officers tried to enter her apartment, she threw a glass candle at them, hitting an officer in the arm, and wielded a hammer, the department said.An officer fired multiple rounds that did not strike Perez. After she moved closer to the officers again with the hammer, the three officers fired at Perez and this time struck her.Emergency medical services pronounced her dead at the scene. The department reported no other injuries from the gunfire.The SAPD released body camera footage from the incident late on Friday afternoon that showed the officers trying to enter her apartment as Perez told them “you ain’t got no warrant”.At Friday’s news conference, McManus said that the officers’ behavior was “not consistent with … policy and training” at the department.“They placed themselves in a situation where they used deadly force, which was not reasonable given all the circumstances as we now understand them,” he said.“This event does not accurately reflect the high level of dedication and commitment demonstrated by our over 2,500 officers nor should it undermine the extensive and advanced training we provide to ensure the health and the safety of both our officers and the community they serve.”The three officers – identified as Sgt Alfred Flores, Eleazar Alejandro and Nathaniel Villalobos – had 14, five and two years of service with the police, respectively. The officers were arrested and suspended from their posts Friday, and they were eventually released on $100,000 bail.The police chief said the officers are being investigated individually, and the local district attorney’s civil right division is reviewing the case.Murder charges against police officers for on-duty shootings are rare, but there has been an uptick after police departments came under global scrutiny in 2020. That year, a police officer in Minneapolis murdered George Floyd.Earlier this year, five police officers in Memphis were charged with the murder of Tyre Nichols, who was recorded being beaten by officers after he was pulled over for allegedly driving recklessly. More
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Will Hurd Announces 2024 Presidential Election Bid
Mr. Hurd, a moderate who represented a large swing district for three terms, called Donald J. Trump a “lawless, selfish, failed politician.”Will Hurd, a former Texas congressman who was part of a diminishing bloc of Republican moderates in the House and was the only Black member of his caucus when he left office in 2021, announced his candidacy for president on Thursday with a video message that attacked the G.O.P. front-runner, Donald J. Trump. “If we nominate a lawless, selfish, failed politician like Donald Trump, who lost the House, the Senate and the White House, we all know Joe Biden will win again,” he said, referring to Republican losses in the 2018 and 2022 midterm elections, in addition to Mr. Trump’s own defeat in 2020.Mr. Hurd, 45, represented the 23rd District for three terms before deciding not to run for re-election in 2020, when a host of G.O.P. moderates in Congress chose to retire instead of appearing on a ticket led by President Trump.His district was larger than some states, extending from El Paso to San Antonio along the southwestern border.Mr. Hurd, who also made an appearance on “CBS Mornings,” emphasized in his video that Republicans needed to nominate a forward-looking candidate who could unite the party and country.”I’ll give us the common-sense leadership America so desperately needs,” he said. A formidable gantlet awaits Mr. Hurd, a long-shot candidate in a crowded G.O.P. presidential field. To qualify for the party’s first debate in August, candidates are required to muster support of at least 1 percent in multiple national polls recognized by the Republican National Committee. There are also fund-raising thresholds, including a minimum of 40,000 unique donors to individual campaigns.Before entering politics, Mr. Hurd was an undercover officer for the C.I.A. and his tenure of nearly a decade with the agency included work in Afghanistan.In Congress, he developed a reputation for working across the aisle and drew attention in 2017 when he car-pooled from Texas to Washington with Beto O’Rourke, a Democrat and House colleague.While Mr. Hurd largely toed the Republican line, he was also known for bucking Mr. Trump. During his final term in the House, Mr. Hurd voted more than one-third of the time against Mr. Trump’s positions. Mr. Hurd was a particularly strident critic of the president’s push to build a wall along the entire southern border, a cause célèbre for Mr. Trump that he ran on in 2016. In a 2019 interview with Rolling Stone, Mr. Hurd called Mr. Trump’s border wall initiative a “third-century solution to a 21st-century problem.”It was not the first time that Mr. Hurd had spoken so bluntly in opposition to a piece of Mr. Trump’s agenda.When Mr. Trump signed an executive order in January 2017 blocking citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States, one of the first acts of his presidency, Mr. Hurd condemned it, saying the policy “endangers the lives of thousands of American men and women in our military, diplomatic corps and intelligence services.”And when Mr. Trump attacked four freshman Democratic congresswomen of color in 2019, Mr. Hurd denounced the president and criticized the direction of the Republican Party.“The party is not growing in some of the largest parts of our country,” he said in a June 2019 speech to the Log Cabin Republicans, a conservative L.G.B.T.Q. group. “Why is that? I’ll tell you.”“Don’t be a racist,” Mr. Hurd continued, according to The Washington Blade. “Don’t be a misogynist, right? Don’t be a homophobe. These are real basic things that we all should learn when we were in kindergarten.”But while Mr. Hurd broke with Mr. Trump on some notable occasions, he also dismayed Mr. Trump’s critics when he voted in lock step with House Republicans against impeaching Mr. Trump the first time in December 2019. Mr. Trump was impeached in a party-line vote by the House for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, but acquitted by the Senate. More
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Who Is Will Hurd? 5 Things to Know About the Presidential Candidate
Mr. Hurd, a former congressman from a swing district in Texas, is a former undercover C.I.A. officer and a cybersecurity expert.Former Representative Will Hurd, a Republican from a swing district in Texas who served three terms, faces the daunting task of establishing himself in a field of much better-known presidential candidates.Here are five things to know about Mr. Hurd, who announced his 2024 bid on Thursday.He is a former C.I.A. officer.Mr. Hurd got a job with the C.I.A. straight out of college in 2000 and spent more than eight years as an undercover agent, with stints in Afghanistan, India and Pakistan.His first assignment with the C.I.A. came after Al Qaeda suicide bombers attacked the U.S.S. Cole, an American warship, killing 17 crew members. His next assignment came after Sept. 11.In an interview with The Guardian last year, he said the job had ended his engagement to a fiancée: “You know, it probably had a chilling effect on our relationship, especially when you confirm: ‘Hey babe, I actually work in the C.I.A., and we’re going to Islamabad. Pack your bags. Great!’”He has expertise in cybersecurity.Mr. Hurd has a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Texas A&M University and, after leaving the C.I.A., worked as a senior adviser at a cybersecurity firm called FusionX.When he was elected to Congress in 2014, he made cybersecurity one of his main focuses and led the House Oversight Subcommittee on Information Technology.He organized a hearing in 2015 on encryption and its potential effects on law enforcement’s investigative abilities — an issue he discussed in an interview with Motherboard at a hacking conference that year. He opposed efforts backed by intelligence agencies to weaken encryption on smartphones.He has continued to work in the technology arena since leaving Congress in 2021, and joined the board of OpenAI, the artificial intelligence laboratory that developed ChatGPT.He has been critical of Trump.Mr. Hurd has not been shy about criticizing former President Donald J. Trump, and has done so since Mr. Trump first ran in 2016.In October 2016, after the release of the “Access Hollywood” recording in which Mr. Trump bragged about assaulting women, Mr. Hurd called on him to leave the presidential race. In 2017, he urged Mr. Trump to apologize for claiming there was violence “on many sides” during a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va. And in 2018, in a guest essay for The New York Times, he wrote that Mr. Trump had “actively participated in a Russian disinformation campaign.”Mr. Hurd also denounced many components of Mr. Trump’s immigration policy — describing his proposed border wall as a “third-century solution to a 21st-century problem,” calling the separation of migrant children from their parents “unacceptable,” and saying that his ban on travelers from a list of majority-Muslim countries “endangers the lives of thousands of American men and women in our military, diplomatic corps and intelligence services.”He was an unusually bipartisan lawmaker.Mr. Hurd represented one of the most competitive congressional districts in the country — a vast, largely Hispanic stretch of South Texas that he won by 2.1 percentage points in 2014, 1.3 percentage points in 2016 and half a percentage point in 2018 — and his voting record reflected that.Breaking from Republican orthodoxy, Mr. Hurd supported legislation to end a government shutdown in 2019 and to protect L.G.B.T.Q. people from discrimination. He also pushed for immigration reform, including protecting young people from deportation.And he drew attention in 2017 for a live-streamed road trip from Texas to Washington with Beto O’Rourke, then a Democratic member of Congress.“My final message for my colleagues as I depart this body: Don’t treat bipartisanship like a four-letter word,” he said in his farewell speech from the House floor.Mr. Hurd did vote the Republican line most of the time. In 2015 and 2017, he supported bills to ban abortion after 20 weeks. And though he voted against repealing the Affordable Care Act in 2017, that was only after it became clear that the bill would pass anyway; he was opposed to the Obama-era policy. He also opposed the Iran nuclear deal and called for a more hawkish policy against the Islamic State.He was one of the only Black Republicans in Congress.When Mr. Hurd was first sworn into Congress in January 2015, he was one of only two Black Republicans in the House. By the time he left in January 2021, he was the only one.He is the son of a Black father and a white mother, and has spoken about his background and his experience as a person of color on many occasions.“Two centuries ago, I would have been counted as three-fifths of a person, and today, I can say I’ve had the honor of serving three terms in Congress,” he said in a statement upon announcing in 2019 that he would not run for re-election.At the time, he said he was leaving in part because he thought he could be more effective in electing more diverse Republicans to Congress from the outside — though that has not ended up being his professional focus. The number of Black Republicans in the House has rebounded slightly, to four. More
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Texas lawmaker says she will ‘carry out’ duties in husband’s impeachment trial
Texas state lawmaker Angela Paxton said Monday she will “carry out my duties” ahead of the historic impeachment trial of her husband, Republican state attorney general Ken Paxton, but did not outright say whether or not she would recuse herself on a vote to remove him from office.Breaking weeks of public silence since her husband was impeached in May, Angela Paxton did not address the accusations in a statement released by her office.Whether Paxton will cast a vote with her husband’s job on the line has raised ethical questions ahead of the looming trial in the state Senate, which is set to begin no later than August. State law compels all senators to attend but is silent on whether she must participate.“As a member of the Senate, I hold these obligations sacred and I will carry out my duties, not because it is easy, but because the constitution demands it and because my constituents deserve it,” Paxton said.A spokesperson did not immediately respond Monday night when asked whether she intends to vote.The statement was released on the eve of when rules surrounding the trial are expected to be finalized Tuesday by the Texas senate. There are 31 senators in the chamber, which is led by the Republican lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, who has declined to comment on Paxton’s potential participation in the trial.Ken Paxton is temporarily suspended from office pending the outcome of the trial. More
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Texas Republicans turn on their own in attorney general impeachment scandal
Everything is bigger in Texas, including the drama unfolding within the chambers of its government.The impeachment of Texas attorney general Ken Paxton came as a shock to many, not just because of the nature of his alleged crimes, but because it is a rare instance of the party holding its own to account.William Flores, a political and social science professor at the University of Houston-Downtown called the situation “absolutely historic.”“This is a Republican-led impeachment against one of the highest Republican leaders in the state. It is absolutely unprecedented, at least in recent times,” Flores said.The Republican-majority Texas congress had largely remained silent on Paxton’s ethically questionable conduct that dates back before his first term in 2014, when the Texas state securities board fined him for violating financial laws.In 2020, things heated up when aides from his own office asked the FBI to investigate him. They alleged Paxton abused his power by accepting bribes in the form of donations from a real estate developer. They also claimed Paxton recommended that a wealthy donor to his campaign hire a woman with whom he was having an affair.When Paxton fired the staff members, they claimed he was unlawfully retaliating.In May, the house general investigating committee, composed of four Republicans and one Democrat, voted unanimously to recommend Paxton’s impeachment. Twenty articles of impeachment were brought against him.It’s not surprising for politicians to be embroiled in a scandal, but it is unusual for Texas Republicans, who usually remain in lockstep, to eat their own.Paxton belongs to the most extreme wing of his party. He is the architect of some of the most severe voting restrictions imposed on the state, such as preventing most mail-in ballots and disbanding drive-through voting, two methods counties have tried to implement to make voting widely accessible. He established an “election integrity” division in his office that dedicates tens of thousands of hours to investigating voter fraud cases, despite no evidence that it is a widespread problem.More recently, Paxton launched an investigation into Austin’s Dell children’s hospital for the gender-affirming care it provided, which led to the swift departure of doctors from its adolescent unit, disrupting treatment not just for transitioning teens, but also those with cancer and eating disorders. He is now pursuing a similar investigation into the Texas children’s hospital, the largest such facility in the country.He also stands in staunch opposition to reproductive choice and federal immigration policy, and in firm support of gun rights despite the string of school mass shootings his state has suffered.In 2022, faced with a subpoena to testify in a lawsuit filed by abortion advocacy organizations at his doorstep, Paxton fled in a truck driven by his state senator wife, Angela Paxton.Animosity towards Paxton culminated when he tried earlier this year to use state funds to pay a legal settlement of over $3m to the former office members who blew the whistle on their boss’s dealings.In order to use taxpayer dollars to pay legal fees for an elected official, the state legislature needs to give approval. But obtaining that approval was not as simple as Paxton might have hoped.If there’s one thing that can be counted on in tax-averse Texas, it’s less spending and limited government. And that extends to the Republicans in charge.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHouse members Andrew Murr and Ann Johnson are some of the Republicans who drafted the articles of impeachment against Paxton, but also the two that serve on the far-right Texas Freedom Caucus.David Spiller, a Republican who also serves on the general investigation committee, began a statement with praise for the attorney general’s “brilliant legal mind” but said: “I have a duty and obligation to protect the citizens of Texas from elected officials who abuse their office and their powers for personal gain. I cannot be complicit in condoning the improper actions of Attorney General Paxton. I cannot ignore it and pretend it didn’t happen.”Even more atypical is the infighting now seen among party members. Hours before the investigation into Paxton was announced, Paxton called for the resignation of Republican house speaker Dade Phelan, whom he accused of drunken behavior while serving in office. Phelan’s retort was presented through his spokesperson, who called Paxton’s move “a last-ditch effort to save face”.Abbott remains silent on the impeachment of his attorney general and the fault lines emerging within his party. The state’s lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, offered a milquetoast statement which was neither informative nor indicative of where he stood.However, Donald Trump weighed in on the drama on the Truth Social social media platform in defense of Paxton.Trump wrote: “The Rino Speaker of the House of Texas, Dade Phelan, who is barely a Republican at all and failed the test on voter integrity, wants to impeach one of the most hard working and effective Attorney Generals in the United States, Ken Paxton, who just won re-election with a large number of American Patriots strongly voting for him.”Although the spectacle has shaken up the party, Flores said not much will change within the state’s Republican party regardless of if Paxton gets ousted or not.“The red meat kind of issues that go to the core and are very popular not only in the state of Texas, but with conservatives – it’s a national playbook,” Flores said. “Texas is filled with with contradictions, but the conservatives are pretty unified around conservative issues.”Now, a senate trial will be held no later than 28 August. A two-thirds majority is needed to remove Paxton from office, including possibly one vote from his wife who has yet to recuse herself due to an unethical conflict of interest.In the event that happens, Abbott will be forced to appoint his permanent replacement and Texas will see the historic toppling of a leader not seen before in the state. More
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Texas sheriff files criminal case over DeSantis flights to Martha’s Vineyard
A Texas sheriff’s office has recommended criminal charges over flights that the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, arranged to deport 49 South American migrants from San Antonio to Martha’s Vineyard, in Massachusetts, last year.In a statement on Monday, the Bexar county sheriff’s office said it had filed a criminal case with the local district attorney over the flight. The Bexar county sheriff, Javier Salazar, has previously said the migrants were “lured under false pretenses” into traveling to Martha’s Vineyard, a wealthy liberal town.The recommendation comes after the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, threatened DeSantis with kidnapping charges on Monday, after Florida flew a group of people seeking asylum to Sacramento. It was the second time in four days Florida had used taxpayer money to fly asylum seekers to California.“The charge filed is unlawful restraint and several accounts were filed, both misdemeanor and felony,” the Bexar county sheriff’s office said in a statement provided to KSAT News.“At this time, the case is being reviewed by the DA’s office. Once an update is available, it will be provided to the public.”DeSantis arranged for two planes to carry migrants, including women and children, to Martha’s Vineyard in September 2022.The groups were told they would have jobs and housing if they boarded the planes, but in reality officials in Martha’s Vineyard had been given no advance notice of the arrival of the 49 people, most of whom had traveled from Venezuela.DeSantis created an “urgent humanitarian situation” in deporting the migrants, officials said. The far-right Floridian, who announced he was running for president in May, was widely criticized for what was seen as a political stunt.On Monday, Newsom called DeSantis a “small, pathetic man” after Florida chartered a private jet and flew 16 South American people to Sacramento before abandoning them outside a church.California’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, said the people may have been duped into boarding flights to the state. On Twitter, Newsom suggested the Florida governor could be subject to “kidnapping charges”.DeSantis has made immigration one of the central issues of his political career.In May, he signed a heavily criticized law which invalidated out-of-state driver’s licenses issued to undocumented immigrants and required companies with more than 25 members of staff to check employees’ immigration status.The law also provides a specific fund to deport undocumented immigrants to other states.After the law was signed by DeSantis the League of United Latin American Citizens, a Latino advocacy group, issued a travel advisory urging people not to travel to Florida. More
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Texas’s use of ‘invasion’ clause against immigrants is racist and dangerous, rights groups say
Texas is challenging federal control of policy on the US-Mexico border by exploiting what it sees as a constitutional loophole around the definition of an “invasion” but that migrants rights activists see as dangerously ramping up fears with racist language.Immigration policy has long been under the purview of the US federal government – not individual states – since the US supreme court ruled so in a landmark United States v Arizona case in 2012.But in November of 2022, rightwing Republican governor Greg Abbott invoked the “invasion” clauses found in the Texas and US constitutions, likening migrants at the border to a public foreign enemy that therefore gave him the power to enact his own border policies.The Texas Civil Rights Project called the move a “political ploy”.“Calling immigrants an invasion is extremely dangerous,” said Roberto Lopez, senior advocacy manager for the organization’s “Beyond the Border” program.Lopez added: “We have seen so many shootings and more rise in hate crimes [against migrants.] This is all connected to this rhetoric of associating people who are trying to seek safety with being like a literal attack on the United States. That is just giving a lot of fire and energy to militia groups and people who are filled with hate.”Abbott is already seeking to take Texas border control into his own hands, as evidenced by the state’s recent announcement of a new “border force” that could allow its agents to “arrest, apprehend or detain persons crossing the Texas-Mexico border unlawfully”, if it gets past the state legislature. And with a conservative-majority in both the Texas state house and senate, that likelihood is high.Abbott has made his interpretation of the “invasion clauses” clear. At the time of announcing his border force, Abbott said: “I invoked the Invasion Clauses of the US and Texas Constitutions to fully authorize Texas to take unprecedented measures to defend our state against an invasion.”“I’m using that constitutional authority, and other authorization and Executive Orders to keep our state & country safe.”But the legal language Abbot is citing is not that simple, according to Barbara Hines, a law professor at the University of Texas and founder of its law school Immigration Clinic.Hines called the state’s justification for creating its own immigration laws “unprecedented and extreme”.“Federal immigration law is a federal issue. It’s not based on the Texas constitution,” Hines said.Article four of the Texas constitution states: “[The governor] shall be Commander-in-Chief of the military forces of the State, except when they are called into actual service of the United States. He shall have power to call forth the militia to execute the laws of the State, to suppress insurrections, and to repel invasions.”Abbott argues the increase of migrants at the border merits drastic actions such as establishing a state police force specifically to rein in immigration.Migrant rights groups say people crossing the border – many of whom are seeking to legally claim refugee status – does not constitute an invasion. Instead, they say such language is racist and inflammatory. In 2019 a white supremacist attacked a Walmart in El Paso, seeking to kill Latinos and fueled by anti-immigration rhetoric. The gunman killed 23 people.Many legal scholars believe rightwing arguments over the invasion clause in the Texas constitution are neutralised by the supremacy clause in the US constitution. That states that “the federal constitution, and federal law generally, take precedence over state laws, and even state constitutions,” according to Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute.But in the US constitution, the word “invasion” is mentioned twice: once in article one, section 10 and again in article four, section four. That gives Abbott, and some rightwing activists, hope that their arguments might prevail on a conservative supreme court.In the first instance, the US constitution specifically limits the power of states to keep troops, like Operation Lone Star a border force, unless invaded..
“No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.”
When invasion is mentioned for the second time, the constitution more broadly says that the federal government is responsible for protecting its states against an invasion.
“The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.”
Hines explained that although the word “invasion” is mentioned twice in different contexts, “there’s this theory of law that the same term or word in the constitution, should mean the same thing [if repeated].” The key question is likely to be whether or not “invasion” in this context means solely by another state or armed force.Abbott’s policies, like his potential border force and the existing initiative Operation Lone Star, are already being questioned as illegal by civil rights groups others. They have faced legal challenges by civil rights advocacy groups and an investigation by the US Department of Justice.If such a case against Texas materializes and moves up through the courts – especially all the way up to the US supreme court – it’s possible the US will have to revisit the question of who gets to control the border.Some say that’s exactly what Texas lawmakers in favor of state control of the border want, especially as the current supreme court is dominated by hardline conservative judges.Texas’s far-right attorney general Ken Paxton said as much in a senate committee hearing on the subject:“We’re in unchartered territory as far as knowing what states can do because states have never had to wonder or really test this,” Paxton said. “So, I think part of this is going to be, we’re going to have to figure out where are the areas that we want to test. And that’s part of why I’ve been saying for two years, we should test U.S. v Arizona. We should test to see if the states can protect themselves, given the circumstances we’re in that we’ve never been in before.”Hines said: “This supreme court has not respected precedent in other situations, for example, in the abortion case. And this state legislature has been willing to pass unconstitutional laws to test them.”“I am hopeful that as conservative as the supreme court is that they’re going to respect precedent. It is unheard of that states could enforce federal law as to who is entering the United States without permission and who is not, and to create a state trespass law for people entering the United States that has been in sole federal power since the late 1800s.” More
