July 21, 2005
Ethnopolitics In Houston And On The Border
Michelle Malkin’s Immigration Blog
points to this
story from the blog Rhymes With Right, about Chief
Harold Hurtt, the Chief of the Houston Police
Department, who
seems to be planning to thwart the activities of the
Minutemen, when they commence operations in Texas.
“Law
enforcement officials in Houston began meeting today to
discuss strategies for keeping the peace when the
Minutemen Civil Defense Corps sends observers to the
city in October to
patrol for illegal immigrants.
"’The
city of Houston is a very
diverse city,’ said Houston Police Chief Harold
Hurtt. ‘There is a great deal of harmony here, and we
are not going to stand by and let some outside agency or
organization come in and disrupt that harmony. We will
do whatever is necessary to keep the peace in the city
of Houston.’ [Local
officials talk over Minutemen strategies, By
Melanie Markley, Houston Chronicle, July 9, 2005]
Chief Hurtt is an African-American
who was
appointed Chief of Police, after a
search which, I strongly suspect, was limited to
African-American police executives. ("I want a police
chief who understands our diverse community."—Houston
Mayor Bill White). Hurtt, who had been chief of
police in
Phoenix, Arizona, replaced Houston's previous
African-American Police Chief, who left more or less
in disgrace.
On the podium during the change of
command ceremony was the acting Police Chief,
Joe Breshears, a "30-year veteran" of the
Houston Police Department. I wonder
how he felt about the appointment of an out-of-town
police chief who couldn't find
Police Headquarters without a
roadmap.
(Hiring out-of-towners has its
problems—for about a year, Chief Hurtt was
unable to wear an HPD Uniform because he hadn't
passed the
Texas state certification exam for law enforcement
officers.)
Now the problem of hiring your
Chief of Police on the basis of ethnopolitics is that
you may get an ethnopolitician rather than a policeman.
Former LAPD police chief
Bernard Parks, who was
fired by LA Mayor James Hahn in 2002 after sending
LAPD morale plummeting, resurfaced to run against
Hahn for mayor. Chief Hurtt is already being
spoken of as possible mayoral material.
Hurtt’s statements about the
"harmony" and "peace" in the City of Houston
may therefore be taken as referring to the
Hispanic vote, and even the
illegal alien vote.
You'd think that someone who spent
years policing
Phoenix, Arizona would know how dangerous alien
smuggling is to the "peace" and "harmony"
of local residents.
And in fact, Hurtt does know.
On Nov. 10, 2003, when Chief Hurtt
was still in Phoenix, CBS news's Sandra Hughes quoted
him as saying
"’When
you have shootouts on your freeways and in your
neighborhoods and your shopping areas, things are
definitely out of control’…
“Arizona authorities say this happens about once a week
in the lucrative and ruthless world of people smuggling
-- in this case, one set of smugglers had stolen all the
illegal immigrants from another set of smugglers. So
they chased and shot up the car on the freeway, trying
to get back their human cargo.
"’If
you look at
slavery at any other time, people were bought and
sold and fought over, and that's what's happening right
now on the southwest border,’ Hurtt said.” [Immigrant
Smuggling Out Of Control]
Has anything changed since 2003?
Yes, Chief Hurtt has changed. And
the ethnopolitical angle from which he views the border
crossers has changed.
