The long-awaited trial of Amber Guyger, in the murder of Botham Jean, has finally started in Dallas. For those who may not remember, Guyger is a Dallas police officer (off duty at on the night of the shooting) who shot and killed an unarmed Jean in his own apartment. When arrested, she claimed that she walked into his apartment by mistake, thinking is was her own, and shot what she thought was an intruder. The case has sparked multiple protests in Dallas and calls for justice from the victim's family. After the initial investigation, the district attorney found enough evidence for a charge of murder. In his opening statement, Dallas County Assistant District Attorney Jason Hermus seemed to be concentrating his prosecution strategy on the multiple opportunities Guyger had to de-escalate the situation—especially since she was the one in the wrong—but instead chose to shoot without provocation. He also seems to be focusing on how this “shoot first” strategy is particularly egregious because of Guyger’s police training. (WFAA)
Continuing their “the only way to win is cheat” strategy, Texas’ GOP-controlled legislature has done it again. Texas House Bill 2504 lowers the threshold that minor political parties must meet to have their candidates appear on the ballot. Most critics of the new law—including political scientists, party strategists, and the two most prominent third parties in Texas—say the bill is specifically designed to siphon votes away from Democratic candidates by making it easier for Green Party candidates to appear on the ballot. In districts where the difference between winning and losing could be razor-thin in 2020, this could be a huge problem for Democrats in close races. (NBC News)
Despite having a reputation for employing migrant workers in low-paying, menial jobs, much of the Texas economy relies heavily on temporary work H-1B visas used to hire highly trained, highly skilled employees. Since the process of granting these visas has come under increased scrutiny from the Trump administration, Texas businesses are paying higher fees, filling out more paperwork, and getting more denials from the federal government. None of these measures are creating more jobs for American workers and are actually hurting Texas businesses instead. (The Texas Tribune)
Nowhere in Texas are the effects of global climate change more evident than in Houston, where extreme weather is becoming the norm rather than the exception. Tropical depression Imelda did as much or more damage than Hurricane Harvey in 2017 and it looks like this trend will continue to turn “100 year flood” areas into zones that require federal flood insurance. (Texas Monthly)
Probably no place shows GOP voter suppression and illegal gerrymandering more than the historically black Prairie View A&M University. In a move that’s a throwback to the ugly days of poll taxes and literacy tests, Prairie View students are required to complete a “residency questionnaire” to prove their eligibility to vote. During redistricting, their campus was split into separate districts. Then, during the 2018 mid-terms, the county scheduled fewer early-voting hours on campus than in nearby white communities. Students have finally had enough and, with help from the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, are suing Waller county. (Austin-American Statesman)
If Democrats want a say in the all-important 2021 redistricting process in Texas, they must win back the Texas House in 2020. A win for Eliz Markowitz in the special election for the 28th District could be the beginning of a blue trend. #FingersCrossed (Huffington Post)
Mini-Rant – Do Police-Involved Shootings Have a Psychological Signature?
So much has been written about police violence against the African-American community and I don’t really feel qualified to cover all the aspects that lead to unarmed citizens being gunned down by the people who are supposedly paid to protect them. However, while watching the Amber Guyger trial this week, I was reminded of a strange bit of information I learned about how candidates for the police academy are psychologically screened.
A close friend of mine was a police officer in the south for a brief period during the 1990s. While he was going through the application process, I was surprised when he told me that he and his fellow police academy candidates were given the MMPI psychological exam as part of their screening. I found this unusual because the MMPI is normed to psychopathology. In other words, it’s given to people who psychologists already suspect as having mental health or other clinical issues.
When I did some research, I found out that most police departments using psychological testing (at least, in the 90s) were looking for specific psychopathologies—usually defensiveness and hysteria—because these issues had been positively correlated with high performance ratings among police officers. Think about that…police departments hiring people who were defensive and prone to hysterical reactions because they thought it made them better cops.
As we went through the 1990s and into the 2000s, police departments become more radicalized by people like Rudy Giuliani, and more militarized by Republicans who want to appear tough on crime while completely ignoring the actual causes of crime (like poverty and lack of education). As the economy got better under Clinton, crime rates went down, but state and municipal GOP leaders continued to push police forces away from public service and towards heavily armed militias. Police training methods stopped focusing on protecting the public and started seeing citizens—especially Black citizens—as the enemy. Even increasing the number of Black police officers and, eventually, Black sheriffs and police chiefs couldn’t stop it.
Has recruitment of police officers with a specific combination of psychopathologies, along with increased militarization and encouraged paranoia caused a perfect storm of cops more willing to shoot first and ask questions later? Does the fact that police-involved shootings are rarely prosecuted, much less convicted, reinforce this behavior? I don’t know, but I think there’s enough evidence to warrant a study of police who are involved in the shooting of unarmed civilians to see if there’s a specific psychological profile that could be screened for and avoided in the future.