"Austin police, 911 staffing levels questioned after street racers take over major intersection, injure cop"
Fox News, 2/19/2023
The video is extremely interesting. It appears that thousands of individuals, using vehicles and themselves as barricades, took over a major intersection in downtown Austin, TX last night and had themselves quite a time. Several cars are seen from a distance taking years of wear off of their tires - at least one passenger is leaning out the window as the car spins, and some especially impressive "fireworks" detonate in the midst of the bedlam. It does not stretch the imagination to assume at least someone in the crowd cranked off a round or two from a firearm.
Where were the cops, you might ask? There are two parts to the answer.
A city council member, witnessing what might be delicately described as a total breakdown in civil order, called 911 to ask for some sort of police response. Their dispatch center put her on hold for twenty-eight minutes.
When officers finally arrived...
Okay, when officer arrived, they were attacked with fireworks (which were actually more akin to rocket-propelled grenades) and, quite correctly, the officer put their car in reverse and beat a hasty retreat. A second officer was accosted by the crowd and that was also enough for him or her.
The larger issue is - how come there weren't a hundred cops wading into the fray, popping off pepper balls and bringing order to their city?
Because many of them are working for different police departments, now. A year ago, in the delayed and largely politically-motivated aftermath of the George Floyd riots, nineteen Austin officers were indicted for a variety of "official oppression" and other crimes related to uses of force applied in the face of rioters. A cursory search of the outcomes of those indictments disclosed no convictions, a couple of dismissals and defense attorneys wondering when the local DA behind the indictments was going to get off his dead ass and discover a just outcome.
This DA, in admittedly left-wing Austin, came into office backed by a Soros-funded organization promising social justice. Maybe that's what they've gotten.
They also got a mass exodus of police officers. They got next to no applications to be Austin cops. They got their budget cut 30% (recently reinstated, but the damage was done). They got such a mess on their hands that they can't staff their communications center.
What the law-abiding citizens of Austin didn't get was protection from not just the criminal element, but from the mobs that form when human beings are relieved of the civilizing aspects provided by consistent and fair enforcement of the law.
Dirty Harry once observed that a negative outcome was "A hell of a price to pay for being stylish." It seemed stylish, in 2020, to penalize police officers and hamstring police departments that had nothing whatsoever to do with a death at the hands of a cop in Minneapolis.
Well, what do you think now?
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