Houston’s Anti-Gun Police Chief Looking to Hire Officers Who Have Been ‘Defunded’

Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

By Larry Keane

Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo is rolling out the welcome mat to police pissed off with cities enacting “defund police” insurance policies. Chief Acevedo is trying to fill 400 vacancies and he’s telling police fed up with progressive insurance policies to move to Houston. It’s like a swimmer at a shark-infested seashore saying to return on in, the water’s positive.

“We’re fortunate we have a mayor and a council … that understands that our community doesn’t want less policing, they don’t want to defund the police, they want better policing and they want good cops,” Chief Acevedo instructed Fox and Friends.

Chief Acevedo, although, isn’t any stranger to utilizing his uniform to push political agendas and siding with the identical politicians who embrace the “defund police” motion, including Houston’s U.S. Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee and Al Green (D-Texas). He’s a Capitol Hill common, most not too long ago testifying against calls to defund police departments, however he’s additionally been there as a vocal gun management supporter. “And I believe that we can do better in terms of limiting access to firearms to law-abiding Americans of sound mind,” he instructed Texas Monthly final 12 months.

That’s proper. Chief Acevedo, the highest cop in certainly one of America’s most populous cities, thinks extra ought to be completed to restrict law-abiding Americans from exercising their God-given rights.

In that very same interview, Chief Avecedo pontificated on how he sees his position in policing and neighborhood security.

Policing Gun Owners

“I want to be a twenty-first-century police chief,” he defined to Texas Monthly. “I think most police chiefs today, what they want to do is change from the ‘Hey, let’s be tough on crime’ mind-set to a mind-set of ‘Let’s be appropriate on crime. Let’s be strategic on crime. Let’s make decisions based on the threat a person truly poses.’ To me, being progressive means that when it comes to people who aren’t hurting others, we need to focus on the restorative approach, to help them get their lives on track.”

Chief Acevedo is the president of the Major Cities Chiefs Association, which supports reinstating the failed 1994 Assault Weapons Ban and instituting universal background checks, which is unworkable and not using a nationwide registry of gun house owners. The Major Cities Chiefs Association also wants to ban customary capability magazines, ban internet ammunition gross sales for a scheme of record-keeping of licensing and record-keeping of gross sales by distributors.

Chief among the many chief’s progressive policing approach is a “get-tough-on-gun-control” agenda. Chief Acevedo was amongst Congressional witnesses begging the U.S. House of Representatives to enact strict gun management measures in a listening to final 12 months.

Houston Police Department chief Art Acevedo testifies earlier than the House Judiciary Committee listening to on gun violence, at Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2019. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

He urged the criminalization of personal firearm transfers and passage of common background checks and desires a nationwide “red flag” legislation that may circumvent due-process rights, protections towards unlawful search-and-seizure and the suitable to a speedy listening to.

“Doing nothing is not acceptable,” Chief Acevedo admonished lawmakers.

Activist Policing

It wasn’t the primary time Chief Acevedo lashed out at lawmakers for not going alongside along with his gun management concepts. He blasted U.S. Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) following the tragic homicide of a Houston police officer in December 2019.

“I don’t want to see their little smug faces about how much they care about law enforcement when I’m burying a sergeant because they don’t want to piss off the NRA,” Chief Acevedo said. “Choose sides,” he added. “It’s right and wrong, and it’s not that complicated.”

The Houston Police Officers’ Union rebuked him for the outburst.

“The fact that Chief Acevedo chose that moment to make a political statement on guns, is nothing short of offensive and inappropriate,” said the HPOU Executive Board in a letter. “There is a time and place for every discussion and this was neither the time nor the place.”

Chief Acevedo’s political acumen is rising. He most not too long ago starred within the Democratic National Convention for a police reform panel with former Vice President Joe Biden. He joined Black Lives Matter in May telling protestors, “We will march as a department with everybody in this community. I will march until I can’t stand no more.”

Black Lives Matter supports defunding police.

Police officers leaving departments focused by defunding actions received’t discover clear waters in Houston. What they’ll discover is a police chief who embraces radical agendas that deny Americans their rights and fail to make communities safer.

Larry Keane is Senior Vice President of Government and Public Affairs and General Counsel for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the firearms trade commerce affiliation.