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A bill pre-tabled this week by State Representative Gene Wu would ban strike ban warrants across Texas, marking the first major legislative response to last year’s botched drug ramp which led to the deaths of two Houston residents and to murder charges against a police officer. .
Wu’s proposal, which he tabled on Tuesday, would bar magistrates from issuing warrants allowing police to break into residents’ homes without warning. After the practice came under close scrutiny in Houston, Police Chief Art Acevedo began requiring the approval of senior police officials and the signature of a district court judge – not justices of the district. municipal court or county magistrates – before officers can execute no-mint warrants.
Acevedo implemented the policy change after narcotics officers broke into a Harding Street house in January looking for heroin, triggering a rash of gunfire that killed residents Dennis Tuttle and Rhogena Nicholas and injured five officers. Police found only small amounts of cocaine and marijuana during the bust.
Shortly after the raid, Acevedo said the no-hit warrants “are going to disappear like leaded gasoline in this town,” making headlines claiming the Houston Police Department would end the practice.
Acevedo did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the invoice.
Wu, D-Houston, has been very critical of Acevedo at times since the botched raid. He accused the chief of contradicting his promises of transparency and agent accountability when he refused for months to release the findings of an internal audit of HPD’s narcotics division. Acevedo ordered the probe in response to the deadly drug raid.
After Acevedo released the audit, Wu called it a “scam” and “money laundering” which he said did not explain the issues that led to the botched raid.
Earlier this year, Wu also joined a chorus of officials and lawyers who called on Acevedo to post body camera video of a series of fatal shootings by Houston police.
Houston Police Union president Joe Gamaldi said Wednesday that union officials “don’t have a position one way or the other” on Wu’s bill. He said officers from the HPD “will apply and respect whatever lawmakers vote for as law.”
It is unclear whether Wu’s bill will gain enough support to become law, although Democrats and Republicans have expressed support for the end of no-coup terms. In a Morning Consult survey of registered voters earlier this year, 75 percent of Democrats and 52 percent of Republicans said they supported a federal ban on no-coup mandates.
U.S. Senator Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky, introduced a bill in June that would have ended no-bang raids, and U.S. Democrats have also included the proposal in their criminal justice reform bill. . Legislation introduced by Senate Republicans would have prompted departments to end interdiction warrants, but would not have prohibited the practice.
During the 2019 legislative session, State Representative Terry Meza D-Irving introduced a bill that would have required law enforcement agencies to submit reports to the Department of Public Safety detailing their use of no-type warrants. The director of the DPS should then report the results to lawmakers.
This bill did not get out of committee.
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