DA rips police union chief for blog seeking her defeat
Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg’s campaign on Tuesday criticized the Houston Police Officers Union president for a blog post soliciting donations to a political action committee with the goal of the prosecutor’s re-election defeat.
Ogg told union President Joe Gamaldi in a news release to “get with the program” of keeping residents safe. And she called his post, written for a Febuary 2020 issue of the HPOU publication “Badge & Gun,” a “misguided” attempt to get contributions via inflammatory rhetoric and “hate speech.”
“I ask Mr. Gamaldi to work along with us,” Ogg said. “Instead, he is trying to raise money and play election-year politics while being paid for working as a police officer. His efforts to undermine the District Attorney’s office, which is the people’s law firm in criminal court, does not make anyone safer. Evidence-based prosecution is the way to build community trust in law enforcement.”
Gamaldi responded to the press release on Twitter, criticizing Ogg’s supposed definition of hate speech and alleging — as he did in his blog — that she lets violent criminals off with easy sentences.
“According to DA, when pointing out her countless failures, it equals ‘hate speech,’” he tweeted.
He also challenged her to a debate.
“She should be much more concerned about the implosion of her office than what the union president has to say about her failures,” Gamaldi said in a phone call.
In her press statement attacking Gamaldi’s statements about her, Ogg said she considers law enforcement a partner in her fight to make Harris County safer.
The union’s blog post referenced Ogg and her management team as “nothing short of a train wreck.” Gamaldi titled the article, “Kim Ogg must go! Here are the early stages of our coordinated plan to defeat the most criminal-happy district attorney in history.”
“They have completely dismantled a once-proud office and contributed to a revolving-door justice system that reduces the safety of our officers, the community, and erodes the faith of the public in our criminal justice system,” he wrote.
Gamaldi said the union has already begun running targeted digital ads against Ogg and several judges, under the title “Harris County Deserves Better.”
The union this month endorsed its legal counsel, Mary Nan Huffman, in the Republican district attorney primary. It endorsed Todd Overstreet, a longtime criminal defense attorney, in the Democratic primary.
Ogg and Overstreet are running against former prosecutors Carvana Cloud and Audia Jones in the March 3 election. Huffman will oppose former prosecutor Lori DeAngelo and defense attorney Lloyd Wayne Oliver.