How did we get here?

As the nation watched the video clip of George Floyd dying under the knee of a Minneapolis Police officer, we were both horrified and outraged. The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, which typically garners some level of attention in the months prior to elections, wasted no time in leveraging Floyd’s death as a platform to advance their Marxist ideology.

As intuitive as the ‘slogan’ Black Lives Matter sounds, the reality is that the movement has done very little to enrich the lives of black Americans. It’s a clever play on words that initially served the movement well in garnering support and millions in contributions from both the public and private sector. It goes without saying black lives matter, few if any would disagree, but as the movement began spreading across the nation with the help of main stream media and progressive politicians, few understood their motivation and goals; to abolish policing, capitalism, and the nuclear family.(1) (2) (3)

What initially began as peaceful protests with the potential to realize meaningful change, quickly devolved into violent anti-police, anti-establishment riots, destruction, and death in several US cities and abroad. This was a pivotal point in American politics. With it being an election year, the left made good on the age-old adage of “never let a tragedy go to waste”. President Trump has always been critical of mainstream media and “fake news”, and this would prove costly into and after the 2022 Presidential Election. President-Elect Joe Biden soon took to the airwaves telling Americans, “Anyone struggling to decide whether to support him or President Donald Trump in the general election “ain’t black.”” (4). Liberal media helped advance the narrative by labeling President Trump a racist, and soon after, several reporters developed a narrative that Trump was a ‘white supremacist’. They substantiated the claim by repeatedly asking him to denounce ‘white supremacy’, edited out his response, then released the edited clips with the headline “President Trump refuses to denounce radical white supremacist.” (5). He was so disliked by the media, that Fox News’ own Rupert Murdoch was rumored to have ordered Fox News’ Election HQ to prematurely declare Biden the winner of Arizona (6).

The left was quick to embrace the Marxist movement and soon thereafter mainstream media focused all reporting on Black Lives Matter. Liberal governed cities not only encouraged the protests, but actively participated, chanting “Defund the Police”, while raising a clinched right first.

Empowered by mainstream media and liberal governed cities, protests soon turned violent. Police were public enemy number one and liberal governed cities did nothing to quell the violence. A clever political move; as riots, arson, assaults and looting continued in liberal governed cities, President Trump had limited options, either use military force to stop the destruction of American cities, an unprecedented move that could easily be spun to confirm the false narrative that he was racist (not to mention the likelihood of further escalating violence), or he could do nothing and be blamed for not intervening. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who had refused federal assistance, letting a Navy hospital ship sit empty in the harbor as he moved COVID patients into assisted living centers, killing tens of thousands, went as far as confessing he would have “decked” Trump if not for his position as governor of New York.(7)

As the violence and destruction continued across liberal governed cities, the media turned a blind eye. As stories of small business owners being beaten and robbed made their way to social media, the press was dispatched with a rather embarrassing narrative that the protests were ‘mostly peaceful’.

Law enforcement in these war-torn cities were met with anger, were spit-on, beaten, and even killed. It soon became apparent that lawlessness in these cities had no repercussions. Emboldened by the inaction and cowardice of progressive politicians, who often times limited the tools available to police to deal with the rioting, the violent mob began targeting white Americans at random.

Places of worship, shopping malls, places that had always been safe in the past were no longer so. Angry mobs would encircle white patrons demanding they raise a clinched fist and shout “Black Live Matter” or be beaten. In Portland, a wrong turn resulted in a young man being pulled from his car and beaten unconscious in front of his wife.

It difficult to comprehend how these progressive governed cities could allow this to happen for so long and do nothing. Countless cities across America put a stop to the senseless violence at the onset, and suffered few, if any causalities. Why is it progressive cities failed to model success? Not only did they sit idle and watch as their cities burned, but they also lifted covid restrictions for protesters, later claiming that large crowds of rioters had no material impact on covid. An absurd claim, quickly disproven by data scientists.

Austin Marxists leverage the BLM movement.

While the “Defunding Police” mantra was new to most, it’s a sentiment long held by many ‘activist-turned-politician’ elected officials within Austin, Texas. In 2015, eminent domain and activist civil rights attorney, Steve Adler won his bid for Mayor of Austin. Shortly thereafter, Adler not only started consulting with fringe activists on public policy, but appointed several to various commissions and task forces, despite none of them having any prior experience.

In 2018, Chris Harris, then ‘analyst’ for the non-profit Grassroots Leadership, an activist organization seeking to end incarceration and policing, testified against renewing the Austin Police Department contract with the city of Austin. Soon thereafter, Harris an active member of the Democratic Socialist of Austin (DSA), and adamant Police abolitionist is tasked by the city of Austin to serve on the Police Oversight Advisory Working Group (8).

In July of 2018, Farah Muscadin was awarded the permanent position as Austin’s Police Monitor. Farah was previous employed at Chicago State University as the Dean of Students but was terminated in 2016 for falsifying claims of sexual harassment against a colleague. The university was sued and quickly settled for an undisclosed amount. While Farah denies she was terminated and insists she was part of the university’s layoffs, the record explicitly reflects her being terminated by the university.

Because the University of Chicago did not press charges, no crimes are reflected on her criminal record. That said, minimal due diligence would have surfaced the facts surrounding her termination. This due diligence falls within the responsibilities of Spencer Cronk, the Austin City Manager. It’s unknown whether or not the city manager knew about this before hiring Farah, but it was brought to his attention afterwards, and he failed act on it.

By mid 2019, Farah was not only colluding with DSA activist Chris Harris, but had broadened her circle to include Chas Moore, activist and 2nd degree convicted felon who heads up the “Austin Justice Coalition”, and Sukyi McMahon, also DSA / Police Abolitionist and member of “Austin Justice Coalition”.

The three begin working on an undisclosed project to reform policing. Later, Farah reveals her disdain for “white” people. Incidentally, Farah, Sukyi, Chris, and Chas are all African American.

The Austin Justice Coalition made a failed attempt in 2019 to demonstrate the value of Austin Police. The group claimed to have reviewed all 911 calls and with the help of an impartial data analytic group arrived at the conclusion than only 1% of police have value.

Later that same year, Chris Harris, DSA / Police Abolitionist and member of Austin’s Police Oversight Committee hosted a panel with fellow DSA member Sukyi McMahon, on “The End of Policing”, the panel session was recorded and posted on YouTube (9). The fact that a member of Austin’s Police Oversight Committee hosts a panel to advance the DSA’s goal of putting an end to policing should be flagged as a conflict of interests. The city turned a blind eye and did nothing.

Despite the failed and embarrassing attempt to justify and ‘end of policing’ in Austin, the activists regrouped and made a second attempt in 2019, in a joint study from the Office of Police Oversight, the Office of Innovation, and Equity Office to explore how various ethnic and racial groups within Austin experience Police motor vehicle stops. The report “examines motor vehicle stops from 2015-2018 and offers recommendations where disproportionality exists based on race/ethnicity.”(10)

In summary, the 2019 Joint Report concludes:

⦁ Data reveals racial disparities in motor vehicle stops in 2018, with Black/African
and Hispanic/Latinos being increasingly overrepresented in motor vehicle stops and White/Caucasians being increasingly underrepresented during the same time period.
⦁ Data from 2018 shows that Black/African Americans are disproportionately overrepresented in cases when their race is known by officers before the stop compared to cases when their race is not known before the stop.

Despite the report being reviewed before being made public, it’s fundamentally flawed from the onset. The report was found to use census data from 2010 to extrapolate meaning from police motor vehicle stops in 2018. Austin has grown substantially between 2010 and 2018; not only has the population drastically increased, but the demographics have changed as well. While the infographic below doesn’t encompass the 2018 period, it does reflect the change in African American population within Austin over a 10-year period, a point that cannot be ignored.

Rather than dismiss the report entirely, it’s easy enough to use 2018 demographic data on 2018 APD motor vehicle stops to determine if there is any validity to the claim of African Americans are being disproportionately represented in motor vehicle stops.

Using 2018 demographic data from the Texas State Date Center:

The results are clear and incongruent with the claims of the 2019 Joint Report. African Americans are in fact over-represented in motor vehicle stops at 9.4% over the percentage of African Americans of driving age. Likewise, Caucasians are also over-represented by an amount of 8.1% over the percentage of Caucasians of driving age, and Hispanics overrepresented by an amount of 8.4% over the percentage of Hispanics that are of driving age.

Within the footnotes of the paper is an obscure description of why the wrong data was used in the report. The explanation is little more than hand-waiving a gross error in the fundamental basis of the report.

The city of Austin has funded several investigations into “Systemic Racism” within APD, and I’m told another is on the horizon. Given the size and diversity of Austin’s Police force, it’s likely that racism exists in some corners of the Police force. However, previous investigations set out to prove systemic racism have come up empty; further, the two reports by Austin’s anti-policing activists have failed miserably in their attempt to demonstrate the same.

It wasn’t until 2020 when local activists joined forces with BLM to defund police that they succeeded. Austin City Council claimed thousands from the community emailed, called, and demanded Austin Police be defunded; however, as we’ve recently learned Austin has a history of giving gift cards to members of the community who back their agenda (11). Soon after the progressives on Austin City Council voted unanimously to defund police, a poll of each district confirmed this was the will of the City Council, not the will of the people.

Austin Police have long been a target by Austin activists and progressives, after Mayor Adler folded to the demands to defund Police, Austin made the largest percentage decrease in Police funding than any other city within the United States.

The results speak for themselves. In 2020 Austin set a record high for the number of homicides and assaults, halfway through 2021, we’ve already surpassed that record. Austin is no longer safe to roam downtown, the city had made every effort to deny it from under-reporting the number of homicides on the city’s open data portal to no longer mentioning the how many homicides have taken place with each new occurrence. Each number represents a human life taken, something that may have been avoided if criminals weren’t so emboldened by Austin’s lack of policing and failure to prosecute.

While recent Texas State legislation passed a “Back the Blue” bill, penalizing cities like Austin who defund the police and local PAC SaveAustinNow has collected enough signatures to potentially counter the damage that was done by defunding, nothing will help those who perished as a result of the progressive Marxist ideology.