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Many small bloodsucking insects.

Monday, June 5th, 2023

I usually don’t like to cover politics here, even Texas politics, because it tends to drive me up a tree.

In this case, I haven’t seen anyone else pick up on this, and it’s an interesting story.

The Texas Legislature has eliminated annual safety inspections for cars, starting in 2025.

The Libertarian side of me thinks this is swell: as far as it was concerned, the annual inspection didn’t do much of anything except put money in the pockets of certified state inspection stations for “adjusting your headlights” and “replacing your wiper blades”.

“This will make the roads more dangerous. I’m sure you guys have thought about that. I could also talk about the small businesses that will be put out of business and many people will have to be fired and lose their job,” owner of San Antonio-based Official Inspection Station Charissa Barnes said. “If this bill passes, then it would destroy our inspection industry, right in the middle of us bringing on emissions testing.”

The less Libertarian side of me is skeptical for a few reasons. While I think most people are motivated not to drive with bad tires and brakes, and those kind of things can be picked up when you take your car in for an oil change anyway, there probably are some folks who got some warning out of the annual inspection process. Then again, the people who did drive with bad brakes and bad tires probably would be driving even if they didn’t have an inspection or registration, and these days the odds of getting caught seem to be slim.

If safety is really a concern, the insurance companies can start requiring a “voluntary” inspection: you get a discount if you get your car inspected yearly at an approved facility. Or even better, no inspection, no insurance. Worst case, you go through the assigned risk pool.

Secondly, this doesn’t eliminate the state inspection fee: the state is still going to make you pay $7.50 (or $16.75 if it is a new car) as part of the annual registration.

Also, if your car is registered in one of the areas that requires emissions testing (that includes Travis, Williamson, and Harris counties, among others: full list in the article) you still have to get your car emissions tested before you can register it. (There’s an exception for cars that are 25 or more years old: I managed to get out of emissions testing for a few years before my old Honda blew a head gasket.)

I thought most states still required at least a safety inspection, but I was wrong, according to Wikipedia: “Fifteen states have a periodic (annual or biennial) safety inspection program, while Maryland requires a safety inspection and Alabama requires a VIN inspection on sale or transfer of vehicles which were previously registered in another state.”

Interestingly, Louisiana requires a safety inspection, and “New Orleans requires a “brake tag”. In addition to the state requirements, if the vehicle is registered in New Orleans, the brakes must be tested annually with a short stop test.”

Must be fun to get your car inspected in the Big Easy.

Posted in Cars, Politics, Roads, Safety, Texas, Travis County, WillCo | 2 Comments »

Memo from the police beat.

Tuesday, May 18th, 2021

There have been a few mildly interesting police stories in recent days. Here’s a round-up.

1. The police chief of the Manor ISD Police (yeah, the school district police, not the city police) has been “placed on administrative leave“.

The accusations against him seem to amount to two things: “falsifying timesheets”, and “improperly donating used cellphones to a local domestic violence shelter”.

The defense attorney representing Chief Shane Sexton and three other officers in the force, said credible evidence has been submitted to the district to show that all timesheets have been accurate.
Sexton’s attorney Brad Heilman said Verizon Wireless donated the cellphones to the department, came at no cost to the district and were no longer being used.

Manor is about 34 miles down the road from here, and has an estimated population (as of 2019) of about 13,000 people. Small town politics…but I’ll come back to that in a bit. (I also have some questions about why small school districts need their own police departments, but that gets into other issues: how big does a school district have to be to justify their own police force? Does not having a police force for a small school district divert resources from a small city police force? Is it just a question of which pocket the money comes out of? I haven’t though through all of this yet.)

2. Lorenzo Hernandez used to be a deputy with the Williamson County sheriff’s department. He also appeared on “Live TV”, back when they were in WillCo and “Live PD” was a thing.

And now he’s been charged with “assault and official oppression”.

In the arrest affidavit, a Williamson County detective wrote that the woman Hernandez is accused of assaulting “did not pose a threat.”
“Defendant Hernandez escalates the event through an intentional, unreasonable use of force against [the victim] by placing his hand on her throat directly below her chin,” the affidavit said, adding that Hernandez then squeezed her throat and pushed her back into the apartment wall.
“The intentional use of force by Defendant Hernandez by placing his hand on the throat of [the victim] is unlawful, as no exception provides Defendant Hernandez the justification for the use of said force.”

3. This one is in my own backyard, but I’ve avoided writing about it. The story broke late Friday afternoon, and I’ve been trying to get a little more clarity about what’s happening.

The Lakeway police chief, Todd Radford, resigned on Friday. His resignation was not voluntary.

“I stand before you tonight more than likely for the last time as your chief of police, regrettably so. Upon request I am submitting my resignation,” Radford told the council. “Over the last 14 years, I have been every other week in this chamber with multiple volunteers who have sat in your seats as council members and I have served honorably, in my opinion, for three mayors and felt like I have done above and beyond what has been asked of me. And I believe the agency has done so as well. To receive the number of accolades we have has not been easy and I feel like it should be better recognized.”

There is a lot of speculation on NextDoor about what’s going on. Most of it I find unreliable. The theory that I do find compelling is: this is related to a move by the council to eliminate contracts for all city employees and convert them to at-will status. This is something I can get behind for most city employees, but not for the police chief and police officers. I think law enforcement people should be on a contract basis – one which allows termination for clearly defined reasons. I don’t think a cop who murders or rapes someone should keep their job, but I don’t want them being fired because they didn’t fix a ticket for the mayor’s brother-in-law.

Posted in Cops, Law, Politics, Texas, Travis County, WillCo | Comments Closed

Lord Nelson.

Thursday, February 21st, 2019

Item #1: the Circuit of the Americas is not going to get money from the state of Texas for last year’s Formula One race.

The stunning development means the track in Southeast Austin will forfeit $25 million or more in state funds through the Major Event Reimbursement Program. The state reimbursed the racetrack $27 million through the program after the 2017 U.S. Grand Prix, $26 million for the 2016 F1 race and $22.7 million for the 2015 U.S. Grand Prix.

Why are they being cut off? Would you believe…they didn’t file their anti-human trafficking paperwork in time?

According to an October 2018 letter from the governor’s office that was obtained by the Statesman, CELOC [Circuit Events Local Organizing Committee – DB] missed the deadline to submit a required human trafficking prevention plan by 30 days before the 2018 U.S. Grand Prix. Bryan Daniel, the governor’s executive director of economic development and tourism, wrote that because CELOC failed to meet the deadline, its application for reimbursement had been rescinded.
The plan was due Sept. 19, but CELOC did not submit it until Oct. 3.
“In this case, the law is clear that if a human trafficking prevention plan is not submitted 30 days prior to an event, a reimbursement from the Major Events Fund cannot be issued,” Abbott spokesman John Wittman said in an emailed statement. “The State of Texas and COTA have a productive partnership that has had a tremendous economic impact on the city of Austin and the state as a whole, and our office is already working with COTA on next year’s race.”

As much as I enjoy seeing these people cut off from their state subsidy, I have a feeling we haven’t seen the end of this, and that somehow somebody’s going to figure out an end run to get them their $25 million.

Item #2:

At a murder trial last week in Travis County, a defense lawyer for a woman accused of fatally shooting her fiancé approached the witness stand and began asking questions to an empty chair. The attorney, Brian Erskine, was expressing disbelief that forensic examiner Dr. Sam Andrews did not show up to testify about his autopsy on 37-year-old victim Bradley Sullivan.

Did the Honorable Mr. Erskine think he was Clint Eastwood? And why wasn’t Dr. Andrews in court?

Turns out…

…Andrews no longer is welcome in Travis County courtrooms. The district attorney’s office recently decided it will not sponsor his testimony amid an ongoing Texas Rangers and Texas Medical Board investigation into his work at his new job as the chief of the Lubbock County medical examiner’s office.

…

The basis for the investigation has not been revealed. However, a Lubbock County commissioner might have given hints in a letter to a judge Monday in which he alleged that Andrews had improperly harvested excessive body tissue from deceased children for research. The letter from Commissioner Jason Corley to County Judge Curtis Parrish also states that another doctor in Andrews’ office, Evan Matshes, had performed autopsies despite not being licensed to practice medicine in Texas. Similar allegations are outlined in a lawsuit against Andrews and Matshes by a former employee of the medical examiner’s office.

According to the Statesman, the DA’s office doesn’t think this is a huge problem: Dr. Andrews did a total of ten autopsies in cases that are still pending. But in eight of those, “the cause of death could not be reasonably disputed by the defense“.

However, prosecutors must appoint a second medical examiner to review Andrews’ autopsy reports in all pending cases. If the second examiner affirms Andrews’ previous findings, that doctor will then be permitted to testify at trial in place of Andrews.

Posted in Law, Politics, Schadenfreude, TCDA, Texas, Travis County | Comments Closed

Administrative note.

Wednesday, November 7th, 2018

I get a lot of hits on the contact information for Austin City Council members page.

Just so everyone knows, I will be updating that and the other contact pages, but not until after the new folks take office, which I think will be January.

Posted in Admin, Austin, Politics, Texas, Travis County | Comments Closed

Quickies.

Wednesday, October 3rd, 2018

Our short national nightmare is over:

The Republic of Texas Biker Rally and the Heat Wave car show will go on at the Travis County Exposition Center, but the Travis Central Appraisal District will have to scramble to find another venue for thousands of property tax protest hearings after county commissioners voted Tuesday to continue contract negotiations for the two highly popular events.
After a heated debate, commissioners voted 3-2 Tuesday, with County Judge Sarah Eckhardt and Commissioner Margaret Gómez against, to move toward contracts with the event organizers on renting the Expo Center, leaving the appraisal district out of the mix.

Chimene Onyeri, the guy who shot Judge Kocurek: life in federal prison.

Paul Molitor out as manager of the Minnesota Twins. 78-84 this season and no playoffs.

Posted in Firings, Law, Politics, Travis County | Comments Closed

First they came for the gun shows…

Tuesday, September 25th, 2018

…and I wasn’t a gun owner, so I didn’t say anything.

(No, wait: actually, I did. Previously.)

Then they came for the ROT Rally and the Heat Wave car show.

Travis County commissioners will vote Tuesday on whether to lease the banquet hall to the Travis County Central Appraisal District instead. The lease would be from May to August, making the banquet hall unavailable for the Republic of Texas biker rally, which would take place in June, and the Heat Wave car show, which is scheduled for July.
Organizers with both events said that not having access to the banquet hall could be a deal-breaker.

…

If commissioners approve the agenda item on the banquet hall lease, “there won’t be a ROT rally in 2019,” Bragg said. “If they decide to postpone the decision, there’s room for negotiation.”
The same goes for Heat Wave, said David MacDonald, the show’s owner.

I don’t have anything against motorcycle people: some of my best (virtual) friends are motorcycle people. And I kind of agree with part of the argument: why give the space to the county (basically moving money from one pocket to the other) instead of letting a profitable event that brings in a host of visitors every year pay to use it?

But as I said several years ago: there are more deaths associated with the ROT Rally every year than were ever associated with the old Saxet gun shows at the Expo Center. The ROT Rally is always something I find vaguely obnoxious. Fortunately, most of it is either downtown (which we avoid during ROT Rally) or out at the Expo Center. But you still have roads clotted with bikers, many who seem to have bolted on the loudest exhaust pipes commercially available. That weekend’s usually a mess, and I wouldn’t miss it terribly if it was gone. (I don’t have the same reaction to the car show. That just maybe barely impinges on the fringes of my consciousness. Maybe they could do that in WillCo?)

Posted in Politics, Travis County | 2 Comments »

Memo from the police beat.

Tuesday, June 26th, 2018

Oddly, this one is mostly Houston based this time, though there is an APD connection that I’ll mention at the end.

Somebody put flyers on some Harris County Sheriff’s cars parked outside of one of their buildings.

The flyers promoted the organization Targeted Individuals, an organization which believes that the “Deep State” targets certain individuals.
The group believes the FBI and CIA purposefully inflict mental, physical and emotional stress on enemies of the “Deep State,” in part, by shooting microwave technology at their heads in order to cause brain damage, according to the group’s website.

I think this is their website. At least this is the one linked in the HouChron article. There’s another site called “Targeted Individuals” which seems to cover similar ground. I haven’t had time to dig deeply into either of these sites yet, though I’m generally familiar with the whole beaming microwaves/gangstalking/etc. theory.

But that’s not what makes this story weird. A deputy with HCSO went out, found one of the flyers on her car window, and removed it.

Apparently, the flyer was laced with fentanyl.

She initially did not think anything of it but soon started to feel light-headed and showed other fentanyl-related symptoms.
She was rushed to the hospital and is expected to survive as authorities investigate the flyers’ origination. She was released around 4:30 p.m., authorities said.

My first thought was: “How do they know?” Could it just have been heat-related stress or some other condition, and everyone jumped to the conclusion it was fentanyl? According to the HouChron, at least one flyer (I assume it was the one the deputy handled) “tested positive” for fentanyl, and the remaining flyers are being analyzed by the county forensic lab. No idea if the positive test was a field test, or something more sophisticated.

If someone is actually putting drug-laced flyers on cars in an effort to hurt or kill police officers, that’s a pretty serious escalation. I’m hoping it isn’t true, but in the meantime: paranoia and gloves are your friends.

A while back, I wrote about the cases of Terry Thompson and his wife. Briefly: Terry Thompson confronted a man for public urination at a Denny’s and pinned him to the ground. His wife, a HCSO officer at the time, helped him hold the man down. (The wife has since been fired.) The man passed out and died three days later. Mr. Thompson and his wife were charged with murder.

Terry Thompson’s trial was last week. It ended in a mistrial. The Harris County DA announced yesterday that they plan to retry the case. But:

Although all the jurors agreed deadly force was justified under the circumstances, [Scot] Courtney [Thompson’s attorney – DB] said, one refused to find him not guilty of the murder charge.
“One of the jurors said that he could not, he would not vote not guilty – and he hung up the jury for a day,” Courtney said. “It’s disappointing that a juror was seated and swore an oath to follow the law and then ultimately didn’t.”
On the lesser charge of manslaughter, 10 jurors voted not guilty and on the count of criminally negligent homicide eight voted not guilty, Courtney said.

And finally, noted for the record and without much comment, because I just don’t know what to make of it:

A lawsuit has named Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo, the City of Austin and Travis County as defendants in a class action complaint accusing them of failing women who were sexually assaulted.

…

Others named in the lawsuit include Travis County District Attorney Margaret Moore, former Travis County DA Rosemary Lehmberg, Austin Police Chief Brian Manley, and Travis County Sheriff Sally Hernandez.

Posted in Cops, HCDA, Law, Politics, Texas, Travis County | Comments Closed

Obit watch: March 21, 2018.

Wednesday, March 21st, 2018

Nelda Wells Spears, former Travis County tax assessor-collector. I remember having to write checks to her, back in the pre-Internet days…

Earl Cooley, prominent Austin SF fan, influential early BBS guy, and a personal friend.

The Mad Midnight Bomber What Bombs At Midnight. They haven’t released a name yet, but even if they did, I wouldn’t give him the publicity.

Posted in Austin, Explosives, Geek, Law, Travis County, WillCo | 1 Comment »

Have I really been blogging this long?

Thursday, March 15th, 2018

Folks who have been reading this blog for a long time may remember Laura Hall, or, as I like to call her, “The Happy Hacker”.

For those with poor memories or who haven’t been following along, Ms. Hall is famous for such hits as “help this guy I know cut up and dispose of his girlfriend’s body” and “turn my five year sentence into ten years because I’m such a witch“.

Ms. Hall will be released from prison today.

Even though Hall was convicted in 2007, it took five years of emotional legal wrangling for a Travis County jury to sentence her to 11 years in prison. Her sentence included 10 years for the tampering with evidence conviction and one year for a charge of hindering apprehension — both were served concurrently.
She was also allowed time served, which is why she’s being released Thursday.

She’s served “almost” eight years out of her ten year sentence.

Posted in Austin, Law, Travis County | 2 Comments »

Because he got high.

Monday, December 18th, 2017

Because he got high, Ryan Boehle threatened to shoot cops.

Okay, that may be a slight exaggeration: “he planned to celebrate his 50th birthday by shooting police because he was upset about a drunken driving arrest in which his blood test came back negative for alcohol”.

Mr. Boehle was arrested. The police seized a total of 13 guns, “1,110 bullets” (sorry, I’m quoting the Statesman here) and 6.3 grams of marijuana.

Mr. Boehle was never actually charged for the threats. The judge in the case is quoted as calling his writings “marijuana-induced gibberish.” It sounds like this is one of those true threat/not a true threat sort of legal distinctions that Ken White keeps trying to explain to myself and other people, and I keep not understanding, but that’s getting off topic.

(Also, “Marijuana-Induced Gibberish” would be a great name for a band.)

But we have to throw him in jail for something, right?

(“Why?” Hey, that’s not the kind of question you should be asking.)

I know! We’ll get him for “making a false statement in connection with the attempted acquisition of a firearm”! Mr. Boehle has a misdemeanor domestic violence conviction from 1993 in Connecticut: he allegedly “slapped, choked and bit his girlfriend”. As a result of this, he apparently failed the background check at three Austin area gun shops (again, per the Statesman).

However, during pretrial litigation the charge was determined to be insufficient to prohibit gun possession.

Oh, dear. Now what is the state going to do?

Wait: there’s that devil’s lettuce they found!

With their case weakening, prosecutors held tight to the gun-and-weed charge, using it to successfully to argue that Boehle should be denied bond and kept in jail pending the resolution of the case. Characterizing Boehle as a habitual marijuana user took little effort from the government, which not only had the pot found in his home but also test results from the DWI arrest that showed the presence of the drug.

Cutting closer to the end of the story, Mr. Boehle pled out to a charge of “owning a gun as a prohibited person”. You see, pot is still federally illegal, and the law says it is illegal for a pot smoker to own guns.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals established the definition of an unlawful drug user who is unable to own guns in 1999, when it affirmed the conviction of a Midland man who had been arrested several times with marijuana. He argued on appeal that the law fails to establish a time frame for when a person must use a controlled substance in connection with the possession of a firearm. The court ruled that an ordinary person could determine the man was a drug user. He was sentenced to two years in prison.

This doesn’t happen a lot. The Statesman quotes one California attorney who specializes in pot law as saying he’s never seen this in 50 years of practice. On the other hand, though, the Honolulu PD famously recently sent out letters to people with medical marijuana cards: “Give up your guns, or else.” (They apparently haven’t followed through on the “or else” part yet.)

Mr. Boehle was sentenced to five years of probation, and will be drug tested as part of that. The twist at the end is: he has a form of epilepsy, and wants to use a low THC marijuana extract to treat it. But he’s going to have to get his probation terms modified to allow this treatment. Texas has only recently legalized the use of the extract to treat epilepsy (“…only after a patient has tried at least two other treatments”) so Mr. Boehle will be venturing into uncharted territory.

Posted in Austin, Cops, Guns, Law, Politics, Sarcasm, Travis County | Comments Closed

Quickies: October 26, 2017.

Thursday, October 26th, 2017

NYT coverage of the Suffolk County prosecutor indictments, mentioned yesterday.

This is a bit weirder than I expected at first glance. A heroin addict was breaking into cars. One of the cars he broke into was the police chief’s.

From the vehicle, Mr. Loeb stole a duffel bag that contained cigars, pornographic DVDs and sex toys.

Now, perhaps this is victim blaming, but I really can’t see why you’d leave your porno DVDs and sex toys in the car unattended. But I digress. The chief found the heroin addict and beat the crap out of him.

Four years later, after an investigation by federal agents, Mr. Burke [the chief – DB] pleaded guilty to having beaten Mr. Loeb after he was arrested and shackled to the floor of a police station. Last year Mr. Burke was sentenced to 46 months in federal prison for assaulting Mr. Loeb and for trying to orchestrate a cover-up of what had happened.

The charges against the DA, Thomas J. Spota, and his “top anti-corruption prosecutor”, Christopher McPartland, stem from this cover-up:

Federal prosecutors accused them of holding a series of meetings and phone conversations with Mr. Burke and other police officers in which they agreed to conceal Mr. Burke’s role in the assault and to impede the federal investigation.

Everyone knows I’m not a baseball fan. Related to that: I don’t understand baseball. Maybe Borepatch or someone else who’s smart can explain this to me: Joe Girardi out as Yankees manager.

They were in the playoffs, for crying out loud. They almost went to the World Series. What more did they want out of Girardi, and why are people saying it was time for him to go? (See also: Boston.)

Remember the mayor of Lakeway, Joe “John Smart” Bain? (Previously on WCD.)
He was fined $500 by the Texas Ethics Commission and had to pick up the garbage.

The commission, which met Sept. 27 to consider the complaint, considered four posts written by “John Smart” and concluded there was credible evidence that Bain intended to “injure a candidate or influence the result of an election” while misrepresenting the source of the communications, a violation of the election code.
The mayor also did not mark the post containing explicit advocacy as political advertising, another code violation, the commission said. And finally, it said, evidence indicates Bain violated ethics code when he misrepresented his own identity in campaign communications or political advertising.

Posted in Cops, Firings, Law, Politics, Sports, Travis County | Comments Closed

Fizzle.

Monday, October 23rd, 2017

Travis County prosecutors dropped all of the remaining charges against longtime state Rep. Dawnna Dukes on Monday, court filings show.

I expect longer, more detailed stories tomorrow morning. In the meantime, quoted without comment:

Travis County District Attorney Margaret Moore pinned the prosecution’s collapse on conflicting statements given by a top official in the Texas House, who told prosecutors that travel to the Capitol was required to earn the per-diem payments but recanted that position in a statement to Dukes’s lawyers.

Posted in Austin, Law, Politics, TCDA, Travis County | 2 Comments »

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