Photo by Ralph Isenberg, April 2006

By Bill Miller
Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Joint operations between Fort Worth police and the Texas Alcohol Beverage Commission have been suspended during investigations into an inspection early Sunday that resulted in the injury of a man at a new gay club near the city's hospital district.

Chief Jeff Halstead on Thursday announced a series of actions relating to the early-morning incident Sunday at the Rainbow Lounge on Jennings Street, which has drawn protests from the gay community.

Halstead also said he would conduct a review of "multicultural training" for police officers to ensure that the information is "up to date" on issues that concern the gay community.

Meanwhile, the man who was hurt, 26-year-old Chad Gibson, was still in fair condition at John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth where he was being treated for a head injury. . . .

By Tammye Nash
Senior Editor, The Dallas Voice

. . . Some reports have indicated that Gibson was taken into custody inside the nightclub and then taken outside where he began vomiting, and that he injured his head when he fell due to extreme intoxication.

Several eyewitnesses inside the club at the time, however, had described seeing Gibson grabbed by officers and thrown to the floor in a hallway at the back of the club. The witnesses said that Gibson hit his head at that point, and that several officers were holding him down, one kneeling on his back and another placing his foot on Gibson’s head or neck. . . .

By Paul E. Scott
Executive Director, Equality Texas

Late Saturday evening, June 27th, Fort Worth Police Officers and Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission (TABC) officers entered into the Rainbow Lounge in Fort Worth for an alcoholic beverage code inspection. What resulted was the arrest of seven (7) patrons, one being critically injured during the raid.

With the raid happening on the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riot, we are reminded that we need to advocate for the equal treatment of all citizens and this case, we call for an immediate and public investigation into the circumstances surrounding this raid, including the apparent large number of police and TABC officers and paddy wagon. With one patron currently in ICU as a result of injuries sustained during the raid and arrest, the investigation needs to cover the use of excessive force and whether these injuries were the result of excessive force or were incidental to the arrest.

By Pedro Ruiz

Protest at the T. Don Hutto Residential Center was on June 20, 2009. We marched through the town of Taylor, Texas, to the detention center. The march started at about 1:10 p.m. as we arrived to the detention center at about 1:35 p.m. We had about 175 people in attendance at the demonstration. The platform of speakers and musicians was from 1:40 p.m. to about 3:50 p.m. People started to leave about 4:30 p.m. at the end, in which we took this picture.

There is a yellow line that you are not supposed to cross, as I had approached the van earlier in which they threatened to arrest me for wanting to take a picture of the facility owned by Corrections Corporation of America.

Free the Children! Shut Hutto Down! Picture of Antonio Diaz of the Texas Indigenous Council and Pedro Ruiz.

Marching to the T. Don Hutto Residential Center through the detention center's backyard. Marching for the first time over the downtown bridge in Taylor, Texas. Free the Children-Shut Hutto Down sign.

The Beyond Point in which only authorized people are allowed beyond this marker at the T. Don Hutto Residential Center. Antonio, Pedro, and Chuck.

People demonstrating their freedom of speech in front of the entrance to the T. Don Hutto Residential Center, completely blocking the entrance from any vehicles entering the detention center.

For more information on the movement to Free the Children, please visit the website www.tdonhutto.blogspot.com or see Tlazocamati - Ollin Quetzalcoatl 21 at myspace.

Also, please read the article I was in exposing Lulac's connection to Corrections Corporation of America.

UNI0N transit workers in Austin were told on Tuesday that they would either have to give up raises they won in a recent strike or give up more bus routes to non-UNI0N employees.

According to a story in Thursday's Austin American-Statesman, the UNI0N replied to Capital Metro management by requesting (1) financial information on top administrative staff and (2) a complete accounting "of how the agency in the past six years spent a reserve fund of more than $200 million that is nearly gone."

"We want to see how the money has really been spent before we make that determination," said UNI0N local president Jay Wyatt. "We're not going to make it blind and in the dark."

The Amalgamated Transit UNI0N Local 1091 represents more than 800 Capital Metro drivers, mechanics and maintenance workers.

UNI0N workers are scheduled to get a 1.5 percent raise July 1 and another 1.5 percent in January.

Transit management says the system needs the UNI0N to give back those hard-won raises in order to offset declining sales-tax revenues.

According to the newspaper report: "Outside contractors Veolia Transportation and First Transit furnish bus drivers and mechanics for 21 of Capital Metro's 71 regular routes. The number of outsourced routes has increased steadily in recent years, including four routes shifted to contractors in January."

Note: our anti-hacking security at TCRR bans a word from our database which we therefore spell in upper case with a zero: UNI0N.--gm

By Nick Braune
Mid-Valley Town Crier
by permission

About 75 people attended what became a full-scale briefing on America’s crude immigration detention centers. The student club of Amnesty International at South Texas College, Weslaco, convened this public event on June 10, inviting three important speakers.

Jay Johnson-Castro, founder of Border Ambassadors and director of the Rio Grande International Study Center based at Laredo Community College, spoke on the need to shut down the Hutto detention center, the notorious institution near Austin that imprisons about 200 children. Although Homeland Security has said it is not bothered by imprisoning children because the parents are in the prison with the children, and although conditions are better now than two years ago before an ACLU emergency lawsuit forced some changes, Hutto continues to be a disgrace: punitive and unnecessary. Johnson-Castro and many others want it closed. (On June 20, International Refugee Day, there is a planned protest rally at Hutto.)

A second speaker, Anayanse Garza, from the Southwest Workers’ Uni*n, described how her group had gotten involved recently in publicizing the hunger strike of inmates at Port Isabel’s detention center. (An Amnesty International report on injustices in detention centers was published in the spring, and good-sized coverage of it appeared in USA Today; this article reportedly circulated hand to hand inside Port Isabel and emboldened some inmates who organized and sustained the hunger strike for a good while.) Garza described how her group (SWU) contacted people inside and held several rallies outside the center, generating press coverage for the actions. Garza also detailed the case of Rama Carty, one of the leaders of the hunger strike; she said that Homeland Security has retaliated against Rama, moving him to Louisiana and trying to deport him quickly to Haiti, although he has never lived in Haiti in his life of 39 years.

Because of activists like Johnson-Castro and Garza, Hutto and Port Isabel have been in the news a bit lately, but I had virtually forgotten about the situation in the massive Raymondville immigrant internment camp, 50 minutes north of Brownsville. The third speaker at the Amnesty club forum, immigration attorney Jodi Goodwin, described the Raymondville situation. Up to 3,000 refugees and immigrants with contested legal status are held, out of sight, in spirit-breaking prison conditions behind barbed wire.

The Raymondville detention facility is a “tent city” -- I have seen it from the outside, counting about a half dozen billowy tents apparently divided into “quads” -- built in only 90 days in the summer of 2006. Made of cement slabs, steel ribcage, and canvas, this type of temporary housing has been used in Iraq to house soldiers for a few days at a time, between assignments, but, explained Goodwin, we are talking here of incarcerating people for 6 months to over 2 years in these tent monstrosities. Goodwin said that the Management & Training Corporation and Willacy County make a fortune from this facility and they found that 2,000 beds were not enough, so they built a more “traditional structure” behind the tents with an additional 1,000 beds. (This put Raymondville to work, a broken town of about 5,000.) There is more bed space in the detention centers south of San Antonio than in the rest of the U.S. combined, Goodwin explained.

But how much legal defense do these thousands get? Virtually none, according to Goodwin. Only one attorney and two paralegals are available in the major pro bono organization doing legal work here in the Valley. (And its activities are somewhat limited, as I understand it, by Bar Association rules.) At immigration court, individual detainees are not given a lawyer. No one here has the famous “right to an attorney, and if you cannot afford one, one will be provided.” Because of a loophole -- deportation and related proceedings are considered civil matters and not criminal -- the expected right to an attorney does not apply to these incarcerated thousands. If one is lucky enough to find a pro bono lawyer to take the case, great. If not, one needs to find one’s own private attorney and provide the funds. And all together in the Valley, with thousands of detainees, there are still only three attorneys who are actually board certified in immigration law!

The choice of the Valley for mass processing of immigrants was intentional on the part of ICE and DHS. Up in the Northeastern states, there are many firms doing pro bono work and more lawyers and support networks for this type of legal practice. That is why DHS moves prisoners down here, packing flights daily. The government can process these people -- or as is often the case, delay processing them for six or eight months at will -- with little intrusion by pesky lawyers.

I’ll save some of the details Goodwin related for later -- mental health issues being ignored, some foot fungus problems ignored, poor food, poorly trained staff, etc -- all hidden under tents.

"Aggie Snake Pit" From the Editorial Board of the Dallas Morning News (June 16, 2009)

Disarray in the administration of Texas A&M does not befit the great university that loyal Aggies typically rise to defend.

It's impossible for many of them to defend A&M today.

President Elsa Murano's resignation under duress drips with embarrassing irony. She was boosted into the job over three outsider candidates who, unlike her, made a search committee's finalist list as sitting university presidents. Now, 17 months later, Murano has been squeezed out by the regime of chancellor and regents who handpicked her from her job as agriculture dean.

A&M's board and Chancellor Mike McKinney apparently didn't know what they were getting when they promoted her and didn't know what to do with her afterward. This is not to indict Murano's short tenure. This simply addresses the leadership breakdown that stewards of a legacy institution are expected to avoid.

One sub-theme is perceived string-pulling from Gov. Rick Perry, Texas' most prominent A&M alum. Key administrators have strong ties to the governor, most notably McKinney, a former Perry chief of staff. Murano had complained of being surprised by developments within her purview. If true, that would represent meddling that no chief executive ought to tolerate.

Other moves by top administrators bordered on underhanded. McKinney mused to the Bryan-College Station Eagle recently that perhaps A&M didn't need a president. Perhaps, he said, the job could be combined with his duties of overseeing a system of 11 universities.

The ostensible reason was saving money, though some on campus said they were unaware of a fiscal crisis that would call for such drastic action. The effect was to undermine the university president at a time she was smarting from emergence of her written job review. The Eagle obtained and published McKinney's hand-written evaluation of Murano. It has the look of a paper that a professor graded on his way to class, with scribbles in the margins and crossed-out remarks.

Even if McKinney hit the mark with the low grades he gave her, the process deserved an effort respectful of the office.

As for Murano's performance, her first months on the job merited her inclusion among finalists for the annual Dallas Morning News Texan of the Year feature for 2008. Accomplishments included a new program for tuition-free education to students with family income below a certain threshold.

Murano's tenure was rocky at times, including charges of dishonestly during her clumsy hiring, unhiring and rehiring of a vice president – a former Perry classmate – whose candidacy had not been vetted by campus stakeholder groups.

But Murano's bosses have taken personnel clumsiness to new heights, shortchanging the university mightily at a time it aims to measure up to its ambitious Vision 2020 plan. The job of A&M president must now look like a snake pit to top talent capable of leading a university of distinction.

Editor's Note from the Texas Civil Rights Review: Sources have been quoted to the effect that a new President for Texas A&M at College Station will be named within six months' time. But keeping that deadline is not the most important thing to the institution. What is more important is an autonomous and dignified international search that is clearly anchored from within the community at the College Station campus--a search that is spot free from even the appearance of willful shenanigans in high places.--gm

Email from the office of attorney Darryl Carter, of Glickman, Carter & Bachynsky, LLP, in Houston:

In response to requests for comments on Dr. Murano's Transition Agreement with the University, which was approved today by the A&M Board of Regents, we are providing the statement below from Mr. Carter:

"Dr. Murano was committed to a quick and constructive resolution of this matter. The transition agreement reflects our recognition of the intentions of the Chancellor and the Board of Regents. The agreement also recognizes Dr. Murano’s exemplary service and continuing commitment to Texas A&M. She remains grateful for the expressions of support and loyalty that she has received from faculty, staff, current and former students, and friends of the University."

Editor's Note: The AP reports that "Murano will return to the faculty under an agreement reached with the university. She will take a year off while collecting her salary of $425,000, and will be paid an additional $295,000.

"After accepting Murano's resignation, regents approved A&M administrator Bowen Loftin as interim president. Loftin is the vice president and chief executive officer at A&M's campus in Galveston, which was battered by Hurricane Ike last year."

Essential documents for the Sunday resignation of the first Woman and the first Hispanic President of Texas A&M University at College Station.--gm

OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT

Statement from Texas A&M President Elsa A. Murano

"The events of recent weeks have been very taxing for the entire Aggie family. The faculty, students and staff have demonstrated incredible loyalty to this institution, upholding our Aggie values during these exceedingly trying times. I am truly grateful for the countless expressions of support that I have received from our faculty, staff, current and former students, and friends of Texas A&M. I cannot adequately express how much I have appreciated your many letters, phone calls, emails, and especially your prayers. They have been truly uplifting and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

"My husband Peter and I fell in love with Texas A&M the moment we set foot in Aggieland back in 1995. This deep and abiding passion for what the university represents, and for the people of the Aggie family, reinforces my duty to do what is best for Texas A&M. For this reason, I will be resigning as President of our beloved university, effective tomorrow, June 15, 2009, to return to the faculty, subject to approval by the Board of Regents.

"Our university is strong and I know that we will weather this storm. I sincerely hope and pray that we will intensify our efforts to protect and enhance Texas A&M's reputation. I trust that the important issues raised in recent weeks will be addressed in the Aggie way – with integrity, selfless service and indomitable spirit. God bless you all, and gig 'em!"

Statement regarding resignation of Dr. Elsa A. Murano

June 14, 2009

COLLEGE STATION, Texas — Dr. Elsa A. Murano today announced her resignation as president of Texas A&M University. Dr. Murano’s resignation and the plans for her transition back into the faculty will be addressed by the board at its meeting scheduled for tomorrow, June 15.

“Dr. Murano has served the university with distinction over the course of her career” said Morris E. Foster, chairman of The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents. “I want to thank her for her service and commitment to the betterment of the university, its faculty and its students.”

Dr. Murano has served as president of Texas A&M University since January 2008. Plans for her succession will be taken up by the board in the near future.

“We look forward to having Dr. Murano rejoin our faculty and continue her nationally recognized work in food science,” said Michael D. McKinney, M.D., chancellor of the A&M System.

About the A&M System

The A&M System is one of the largest systems of higher education in the nation, with a budget of $3.04 billion. Through a statewide network of 11 universities, seven state agencies and a comprehensive health science center, the A&M System educates more than 109,000 students and makes more than 15 million additional educational contacts through service and outreach programs each year. Externally funded research brings in almost $676 million every year and helps drive the state’s economy.

Evaluation documents posted at KBTX-TV website [pdf format]

Profile of Darryl Kent Carter, Attorney for Murano

The Board of Regents of The Texas A&M University System: Morris E. Foster, Chairman; James P. Wilson, Vice Chairman; Phil Adams, Richard A. Box, Lupe Fraga, Bill Jones, Jim Schwertner, Gene Stallings, Ida Clement Steen; Hunter Bollman, Student Regent.

As summer approaches, an APD officer has shot another young person of color. We don’t yet know all of the details of how or why Nathaniel Sanders was killed, but there is one thing we are sure of already, and it is inexcusable: there is no video from the shooter’s police car.

How can there be no video?! Is it not APD policy to turn on the camera when an officer might come into contact with a dangerous individual or make an arrest?

APD Policy A306b mandates that police car videos record at all traffic and pedestrian stops, sobriety tests, and pursuits. APD cars are equipped with video cameras, so why aren’t officers using them?

Time after time, Austinites are forced to endure tragic incidents of APD brutality in which the actual events are shrouded in an air of impenetrable mystery. It doesn’t have to be this way. Not only do pictures tell a thousand words, but video cameras don’t write false or biased reports to protect themselves or their partners.

With violent officers such as Michael Olsen and Gary Griffin, we all now know how video cameras expose lies about what really happened on the scene. Having represented victims of these police attacks, I am certain they never would have found justice without having a videotape as evidence.

But for every case I’ve accepted, there are dozens I have not because the video backed up the officer’s account or at least showed some understandable reaction. If an officer acted reasonably on the scene, turning the camera on is her insurance policy. So why wouldn’t there be a tape?

We hear the excuses: the tape was lost, I forgot to turn it on, and so on. None of them ring true. If you’re an officer doing your job right, you want that camera on.

During the death of Jessie Lee Owens, four of the five officers who eventually arrived at the scene had video proof of their actions. The one that didn’t was the shooter, so we’ll never know what really happened.

The bottom line is if there is a shooting, but no video, we are left with nothing but the perception that the officer wanted it that way for a reason.

If the APD seriously wants to put an end to this problem, it will actually begin punishing officers who violate its video policy and it will ensure that video recorders are in working order. When is the last time an officer got more than a slap on the wrist for refusing to turn the video camera on? And if police supervisors, who are required to check the cameras regularly, can’t or won’t keep them running well, we should appoint a neutral, competent employee to do so.

Video cameras are a window to truth, and officers who turn them off cast a shadow on that truth and their profession. If we have cameras, they should work. And if you won’t do your job, you should be fired, or at least suspended for as long as your victim remains horizontal. Until that happens, it will remain a sad irony that our citizens who run red lights have a better chance of being caught on video than those shot dead.

By Nick Braune
Mid-Valley Town Crier
by permission

On Monday morning I attended a press conference called by the South Texas Civil Rights Project in front of the Edinburg, Texas Border Patrol office. (It’s a military-like fortress, with ugly fencing and heavy gates.)

The event, timed to mark the beginning of the Rio Grande Valley’s infamous “hurricane season,” was organized to demand that the Border Patrol make public their policy about hurricane evacuations: Specifically, in the event of a hurricane evacuation, will the Border Patrol be checking evacuees’ IDs, trying to figure out who is in the country legally and who is not?

If Homeland Security (DHS) does not tell the public whether it will check IDs, then many undocumented immigrants and their family members can be expected to remain in the Valley in the event of a hurricane, risking being killed by the flooding to avoid deportation or imprisonment.

Chanting “What do we want? Answers!” those organizing the press conference demanded to know which DHS values more: capturing undocumented immigrants or protecting human life? Unfortunately, the answer is pretty clearly the former. Last summer, the Border Patrol refused lawyers' requests that it make its hurricane evacuation policy public.

In an area of the country where there have been many terrifying Border Patrol and ICE operations on immigrant neighborhoods and where the border is highly militarized, a near police state, a hurricane would be the kind of disaster the DHS could exploit to round up even more immigrants and create more fear. (If you're interested in the connection between disasters and police states, Naomi Klein's book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism is a fun read. And it has interesting comments on Katrina.)

The press conference was sponsored by the South Texas Civil Rights Project, LUPE (La Uni*n del Pueblo Entero/Uni*n of the Entire People, the community activist arm of the United Farm Workers Uni*n), a pro bono immigration lawyers' group (Texas RioGrande Legal Aid), and Brownsville-based organization CASA (Coalition of Amigos in Solidarity and Action). Other groups nationally have joined in signing a letter to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, demanding that the Border Patrol release its hurricane evacuation policy to the public.

* * *

This is not the first time that the Valley's vulnerability to hurricanes has been a major topic of concern among social justice activists here. A number of hurricane-related controversies have arisen over the last couple of years.

Last summer, in the rush to complete the construction of the U.S./Mexico border wall in the Valley before the new presidential administration could take office, some levies along the border were severely weakened -- at the height of hurricane season, no less -- to allow the wall to be more swiftly built. During that time, the Valley was left especially vulnerable to a potential hurricane disaster of catastrophic proportions.

The construction of the border wall also raised concerns, which DHS has ignored, that in the event of a hurricane, the rising water, blocked on one side by the wall, would be pushed back into Mexico, spelling disaster for some Mexican border towns. (Along much of the border, the wall is not just a “fence,” but is composed of high concrete or metal panels, appearing much like the wall in Palestine.) A recent flood in Mexico has already caused controversy, as the wall “protecting” the U.S. clearly exacerbated the flooding damage in Mexico.

* * *

There was another protest event last week that I would have attended -- I was tied up working -- a vigil in front of Channel 48. The vigilers were hoping for press coverage on this channel -- denouncing Gov. Rick Perry for executing his 200th person in the state since he has been in office. Perry even beat George Bush by about 50 executions.

No state rivals Texas in executions; Texas has executed someone about every two weeks this year, but several other states with huge cities (New York, California, Illinois) have not executed anyone this year or last year. California is bigger than Texas in population and has a fair share of serious crimes, but it has only executed 13 people since the death penalty was restored in 1976, while Texas has executed 439. (Want to hear the score again? New York 0; California 13; Texas 439. As my students say, Go figure.

Quick fact: in 2008, 92% of all executions were in southern states with a slave-owning tradition.

Another fact: the Supreme Court in 2005 outlawed something condemned by international law: executing people for crimes committed at 17 or younger. But before it was outlawed, the last five Americans who were executed for offenses committed while they were still children, were executed under Perry, and four of those five were black.

National leaders from LULAC (League of United Latin American Citizens) and Amnesty International will join people from all over Texas for a march and vigil at T. Don Hutto Detention Center in Taylor, Texas on World Refugee Day, June 20, 2009.

The vigil will begin with a 1 pm walk from Heritage Park at 4th Street and Main in Taylor.

Participants will then gather for a vigil at 2 pm at the T. Don Hutto detention center at 1001 Welch; there will be speakers, music and other activities to honor the refugee families inside and around the world.

Those who don't want to march are invited to come straight to the detention center on the outskirts of Taylor at 2 p.m.

Since T. Don Hutto, a former medium-security prison, re-opened as a family detention center in 2006, immigrant children and their families from over 40 countries have been detained at the facility. Many are refugees from Central America, Africa, or Iraq fleeing religious or political persecution.

The Hutto prison is a for-profit private prison operated by Corrections Corporation of America. In 2007, after a year of protests, the ACLU and University of Texas Immigration Law Clinic won a lawsuit settlement from Immigration and Customs Enforcement that improved conditions at the facility. However, that settlement expires in August 2009, and advocates are concerned that pre-settlement conditions may return.

ICE has also proposed three new family detention centers across the country, an effort that family advocates and human rights organizations have decried as a step backwards.

Activists are advocating for more-humane, less-costly alternatives to detention programs that keep families together and out of prison-like detention centers. A study by the Vera Institute found that more than 90% of immigrants on a supervised release program attended their immigration hearings. The average cost of a supervision program is $12 a day compared to reportedly over $200 a day to detain a person at Hutto.

Advocates will call on the Obama administration, specifically Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and ICE special inspector Dora Schriro, to close Hutto and end the practice of family detention.

Advocates will also call on the new administration to uphold to international standards as they relate to immigrant and children’s rights, including ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Protestors are expected to join caravans from Austin, Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, College Station, the Rio Grande Valley, and Del Rio to join the World Refugee Day protest.

Check out TDonHutto.blogspot.com for more information. Or call Bob Libal of Grassroots Leadership at (512) 971-0487; Diana Claitor of Texas Jail Project at (512) 597-8746; or Jay Johnson Castro, Sr., Border Ambassador, at jay@villadelrio.com or (830)734-8636

A caravan will leave Austin to go to Taylor at 11:30 am, leaving from PODER at 2604 E. Cesar Chavez.

Ramiro R. Muniz - 40288-115
FCI El Reno
Federal Correctional Institution
P.O. Box 1500
El Reno, OK 73036

(Walt Harrison / Winston Smith Media)

Hutto:
First Anniversary Vigil
Dec. 16, 2007

Faten and Maryam Ibrahim

Hutto Jail for Children, Women, and Profit
(Taylor, TX)
Photo by Jay Johnson-Castro

Neighbors Say Never
(Photo by Jay J. Johnson-Castro)

June 23, 2007
(Photo by Walt Harrison)

Also: See Slide Show from the Prisons for Profit Blog