Adrian Garcia For Harris County Sheriff

 

Who should citizens of Harris County, Texas select for the position of Harris County Sheriff?  

The best choice is former police officer and current Houston City Councilmember Adrian Garcia.

Councilmember Garcia was a police officer for 23 years and has served as Chair of Council’s Public Safety and Homeland Security committee. Mr. Garcia knows law enforcement.   

As a councilmember, Mr. Garcia has had a laser like focus on neighborhood concerns such cleaning up vacant lots and graffti, while at the same time addressing the larger problem of homelessness in Houston.

Mr. Garcia has the endorsement of the Harris County Deputies union.

This strong record of public service, and the confidence placed in Mr. Garcia by rank and file law enforcement professionals, stands in sharp contrast to the poor record of his opponent.

Incumbent Sheriff Tommy Thomas has been involved in many scandals. 

The sheriff’s office attempted to delete internal e-mails that were later shown to contain ethnic slurs. 

Many inmates in the county jail have died while incarcerated. 

Harris County had to pay $1.7 million for a wrongful arrest by the sheriff’s office.

Less ideological blog readers who reach this post will note that I’m a rabble rousing liberal, and may feel that I’m not the right source to offer a view on this important law enforcement position in our county.  

Yet liberals support law and order as a foundation of a decent and just society. You can’t have a decent life and a just society if criminals rule the streets.

Also, Mr. Thomas has been in office for 14 years now. Harris County has changed a great deal in those 14 years. Sheriff’s office employees e-mailing racial slurs in this day and age is just not going to get the job done.

Let’s move ahead for more effective and up-to-date law enforcement by selecting Adrian Garcia as our new Harris County Sheriff. 

Here is the web home of the Garcia campaign.

Here is an overview of the race from the Houston Chronicle. 

Tune Out M.L. King’s Kids—Focus On His Great Life

This won’t surprise you—Martin Luther King’s three surviving children are fighting for money instead of for justice. This time the issue is a biography of the late Coretta Scott King.

From the New York Times–

In the third King v. King legal dispute in four months, two of Dr. King’s children are refusing to provide a biographer of their mother, Coretta Scott King, who died in 2006, with a collection of her photographs, letters and personal papers. Their brother, Dexter King, chairman of their father’s estate, has asked a judge to force them to comply.

At stake is a $1.4 million book deal with the Penguin Group — as well as the reputation of one of America’s most famous families. Penguin said it intends to terminate the contract and demand the return of a $300,000 advance if the Kings do not turn over the papers to the biographer, Barbara Reynolds, by Friday.

The two children who oppose the book, the Rev. Bernice King and Martin Luther King III, say their mother did not want Ms. Reynolds to write the biography. Dexter King, who orchestrated the deal, said his siblings and mother signed control of their intellectual property over to their father’s estate.

A judge has ordered the Kings to appear in an Atlanta courtroom on Tuesday to resolve the dispute.

“It’s sad and pathetic to see the three of them behaving in this self-destructive way,” said David J. Garrow, a  Pulitizer Prize-winning biographer of Dr. King. “Unfortunately all of the children seem to regard their father’s legacy as first and foremost an income maximization opportunity for themselves.” 

Don’t let the King kids distract you from the greatness of Martin Luther King. Tune them out. Take the fact that the children put Dr. King’s name in today’s news as a spur to learn more about King.

Here is my Martin Luther King Reading & Reference list.