HPD: Turner vows quick reforms, but critics say they don’t go far enough
Mayor Sylvester Turner on Tuesday announced he would sign an executive order to enact some immediate reforms aimed at curtailing police violence, including requiring Houston officers to give verbal warning and exhaust all other options before firing their weapons.
Turner outlined his order, which embraces proposals from the #8cantwait campaign, at the funeral for George Floyd, the former Houston resident whose May 25 death at the hands of Minneapolis police sparked international protests and widespread calls for reform. Turner said he would sign the order Tuesday evening, but that was canceled at the last moment; a spokeswoman said the mayor planned to sign the order Wednesday, but did not explain the delay.
The mayor’s announcement came shortly before dozens of Houstonians urged City Council to reject Turner’s
proposed budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1, unless millions of dollars are diverted from the police department to other areas.
City Council members are scheduled to take up Turner’s $5.1 billion spending plan Wednesday, along with 50 proposed amendments. The mayor has put forward a $965 million Houston Police Department budget next fiscal year, nearly twice the size of the fire department and more than the remaining 20 general fund departments combined. It is an increase of $19.7 million, or 2 percent, from the current fiscal year.
Some 80 people signed up for Tuesday’s session of City Council to weigh in on the police department’s budget, potential reforms and the department’s arrests of protesters last week. Many called on council to delay the budget vote so more Houstonians could have time to share their feedback, while others said the department should be “defunded.”
Calls to “defund police” have generated a degree of confusion around the country, with some advocating for cutting police funding and redirecting those resources to other areas, and others backing the idea of disbanding police departments altogether.
Claire Johnson, a District C resident, said Houston should “follow Minneapolis’ example,” where a veto-proof majority of council members have pledged to “begin the process of ending” the police department.
“At an absolute minimum, we need to defund the police, diminish their contract and expand all of the desperately needed re
sources communities of color require,” Johnson said.
Not every speaker at City Council called for police to be abolished, with some asking council members to reduce HPD’s budget and spend the newly available funds on education, affordable housing, mental health programs, flood prevention and a slew of other suggestions.
Limited impact
Though the actual text of Turner’s executive order was not available Tuesday, it will include a ban on chokeholds, require de-escalation, comprehensive use-of-force reporting, mandate that officers intervene when they witness misconduct, “and more,” Turner said on Twitter.
It was not clear whether the order would embrace the remaining recommendations from the #8cantwait project, which claims that departments who adopt the eight measures have fewer uses of force.
HPD already enforces some of those measures. The department’s use-of-force policy from 2015 includes a duty-to-intervene clause and a ban on shooting at moving vehicles, unless the driver is immediately threatening someone’s safety.
The Houston Police Officers’ Union said the department has had a ban on chokeholds for four decades and possibly never used them. It was not immediately clear, however, whether that prohibition is codified in writing.
Joe Gamaldi, president of the union, said he was waiting to comment on Turner’s executive order until the text is released.
Many other police departments already have adopted the #8cantwait measures with little impact to show for it, said Kevin Buckler, a criminal justice professor at the University of Houston-Downtown.
“They’re already used across the country. Perhaps not by every department, but they’re already utilized, and we still arrived at the current state of affairs that we’re at right now,” Buckler said, adding that the campaign “is a very good marketing strategy, but it’s not evidenced-based at all.”
Alán de León, Houston organizer for civic engagement nonprofit MOVE Texas, encouraged the council to adopt Councilwoman Letitia Plummer’s proposed budget amendments, which would eliminate 199 vacant HPD positions and direct the savings toward a slew of reform measures, including investing more money in a subpoena-empowered Independent Police Oversight Board, de-escalation training and mental health units. Still, de León said Houston needs to go further.
“This is especially underwhelming, especially considering the actions other cities are taking to address police brutality,” he said. As an example, he pointed to
Austin, where some City Council members have indicated support for a proposal to trim $100 million from the Austin Police Department’s budget, according to the Austin American-Statesman.
A number of speakers praised Plummer’s amendments, opposed by the mayor but supported by Black Lives Matter Houston, as a good first step. Many others said it did not go far enough.
“I feel like this is an opportunity for us to take a stand. This door is not going to stay open forever,” Plummer told The Appeal, a nonprofit criminal justice news site, on Tuesday. “Things do take time, but there are moments of urgency. And this is a moment of urgency.”
HPD budget
About 92 percent of the $965 million budget proposed for HPD next year is devoted to personnel, which includes officers’ salaries, health benefits and pension contributions. It does not include funding for five new police cadet classes scheduled for fiscal 2021. Police officers are set to receive a 3 percent pay raise from July 1
through the end of the year, with an additional 2 percent raise taking effect in 2021 if Turner and the police union cannot agree on a new contract.
That leaves little room to slash the department’s budget without reducing the number of officers, an idea Turner repeatedly has rejected.
The mayor instead has pushed for HPD to increase its head count by several hundred officers, arguing the department remains understaffed compared to other large cities.
Meanwhile, five of the six black Houston council members — excluding Plummer — released a letter Monday that outlines a package of police reforms, including “automatic disciplinary action” for officers who make “racially or culturally derogatory” social media posts, creating an online dashboard showing complaints against officers, and requiring the police chief to address the public safety council committee upon request.
Buckler, the criminal justice professor, said the proposals from the letter generally are too limited to create much meaningful change. Instead, he said City Council should consider reforms that “fundamentally alter and rethink policing.”
“The worry I have is that these simple things, these little quick fixes, they can kind of appease a population that’s wanting change,” Buckler said. “There could be a point where people become satisfied with that until the next big thing happens. And then we’re back at square one and we haven’t really changed much.”