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A new investigation by TV station KSAT shows that San Antonio police officers who turn off their body cameras are rarely suspended. Even though SAPD policy requires officers to turn on their body cameras during interactions with the public, the investigation found that of the 256 body camera infractions the department has reviewed over a three-year period, only 42 resulted in an officer being suspended — a rate of less than one in five.
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Five members of San Antonio City Council have filed a proposal to expand the city’s eight-year-old non-discrimination ordinance to cover all private businesses with 15 or more employees. The ordinance, which protects people against various forms of identity-based discrimination, currently applies only to city employment and contracts, housing, public accommodations and board appointments. Under the proposal, the ordinance would also be expanded to include legal assistance for complainants and increased penalties for violators.
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The popular Delta-8 cannabis extract remains illegal in Texas after a state district judge in Austin denied a request for a temporary restraining order sought by the CBD retailer Hometown Hero. Many CBD retailers thought that the sale of Delta-8 was permitted in the state following the passage of federal and state laws legalizing the sale of hemp. A Texas regulatory agency last month declared Delta-8 a Schedule I drug, meaning its sale is technically illegal. A new comedy series from muchloved local author Shea Serrano is headed to Amazon-owned streaming service IMDb TV. Serrano will write and produce Primo, about a teenager trying to navigate his academic and social lives. It draws from Serrano’s childhood in San Antonio. Michael Schur of The Good Place will serve as executive producer. — Abe Asher
YOU SAID IT!
“Whether [CPS Energy CEO Paula Gold-Williams] stays or not, I was not going to support it. We have to get our house in order first.” — Janie Gonzalez,
CPS Energy Trustee to the Express-News on the utility’s proposed rate hike
ASSCLOWN ALERT
Saying the quiet part out loud with Texas Rep. Matt Krause Assclown Alert is a column of opinion, analysis and snark. Last week, State Rep. Matt Krause, R-Fort Worth, demanded that Texas school superintendents provide an accounting for books addressing racial justice, LGBTQ+ rights and gender issues which he said received “objections from students, parents, and taxpayers.” Krause, a founder of the Tea Party-affiliated Texas Freedom Caucus, made the request Monday in a letter sent in his capacity as chair of the House Committee on General Investigating. His probe comes a month after he announced plans to run against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the GOP primary. Among the books on a 16-page spreadsheet that accompanied Krause’s letter are The Fight for LGBTQ+ Rights by Devlin Smith, Black Lives Matter: From Hashtag to the Streets by Artika R. Tyner and What Is the Black Lives Matter Movement? by Hedreich Nichols. The list of nearly 900 books also includes fiction titles such as the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron and Follow Your Arrow by Jessica Verdi, a young adult book dealing with themes related to sexual orientation. Further, Krause’s letter asks the superintendents to catalog books on campus dealing with human sexuality, HIV/AIDS and any subject that makes students “feel discomfort, guilt, anguish”
U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, filed a bill last week designed to hold down natural gas prices during environmental disasters such as February’s winter storm. The bill, co-sponsored by Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, would place a limit on natural gas trading during emergencies and establish fines for gas-related businesses that engage in price gouging. It would also open a federal inquiry into energy companies that made billions during the February storm. U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert is again in the news for the wrong reasons. The East Texas congressman was IDed as one of several Republican lawmakers whose offices met multiple times with the organizers of the January 6 coup attempt, Rolling Stone reports. Citing two people involved in organizing former President Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally, the magazine reported that Gohmert and other pro-Trump GOPers, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Rep. Lauren Boebert, were “intimately involved” in planning the Jan. 6 events.
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That Rocks/That Sucks
Twitter / @RepMattKrause
because of discussions of race, sex or gender. He requests the superintendents to share how many copies of each book their districts possesses and at what campus locations. He also asks them to identify how much the districts spent to buy the books. In a statement, the Texas State Teachers Association said Krause’s letter “smacks of a witch hunt.” Which may be putting it politely, considering that the bulk of Krause’s list seems to center around books exploring matters of race, gender and sexuality. In post-Trump America, Republican lawmakers don’t just feel empowered to say the quiet part out loud, they now see potential political gain from it. And this assclown is certainly no exception. — Sanford Nowlin
Bexar County is set to receive more than $12 million in payments from Johnson & Johnson in the company’s settlement for its role in perpetrating the opioid crisis. The county will receive $4.1 million to settle its 2018 suit against the company and $8.5 million more as part of Texas’ settlement with the company. The county is expected to receive its money by year’s end. — Abe Asher
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