Police Union "doubling down" on its choice for Mayor

Many Houstonians have said that public safety is one of their top concerns for the city of Houston. Now, one candidate is attacking the other as being weak, but the other candidate is hitting back.

The widow of HPD Officer Tim Abernathy and other members the Houston Police Officer's Union raised the stakes Thursday. They not only reiterated their support for Gene Locke, but also attacked Annise Parker as a candidate without a plan on improving public safety

"Every question that would move the police department forward, Gene had the right answer to and Ms. Parker would not," said Union President Gary Blankenship.

But Parker shot back Thursday, pointing out that she's had public safety plan on her website since August, promising that she "will protect the police department budget in this economic downturn."

"My goal as mayor is to make sure we have the best trained, best equipped and best paid police officers in the state," she said.

Locke says he too has a plan on his website and his main objective is to find more money for the police department.

"One of the things I want to do is try to find the money necessary to put more officers on the street, starting with overtime," he said.

Parker has challenged the HPOU to release or post the videos of the screenings the union conducted.  However, when we asked Blankinship about the video, he said they only had the video of Locke's screening.  The "tape ran out" when it was time to screen Parker, he said.

Our political consultant, Dr. Richard Murray, says Locke should showcase the police union endorsement because he says it could be an effective campaign tool and this is one race the union doesn't want to be wrong.

"These public safety unions, police and fire, have a huge stake in the election," said Dr. Murray. "It's interesting they made a bet on Gene Locke, and now they're doubling down."

Dr. Murray says neither candidate wants to appear weak on crime. While Locke has received the largest police union's endorsement, three smaller law enforcement unions have endorsed Parker.

Parker and Locke will debate live on ABC13 on Tuesday, December 1 at 8pm. We will have live coverage, both on TV and here on abc13.com. And if you want to ask a question to be used in the debate, you can send it in here.

Comments

[AR]

It seems prudent, from a taxpayer's perspective, to have a Mayor that is not obligated to satisfy the whims of HPOU and its leadership. Their interests are purely economical, and seek to ensure the continuity of their protected and entitled class status. In tough economic times their compensation and benefits must be carefully re-evaluated, just like any other government expenditure. When you have a police contract that allows rank-and-file police officers to extract in excess of $150,000 a year in compensation, we the taxpayers need to change those circumstances. HPOU's scare tactics about crime have less to do about protecting citizens and more to do about positioning themselves for a increasingly larger slice of the City budget pie, when their contract comes up for renegotiation. It is interesting to see small government voters go gaga over shoveling more money to this one branch of government over all others, whether its really needed or not, based on the police union's insatiable appetite for our limited tax dollars and resources.

[Eddie]

Does HPD even have 5000 officers? Last I heard HPD was down to about around 3500 officers, which is why they are so short handed. HPOU fails to remember that they were investigated just last year. What ever happened to that? I don’t think that makes them “most respected”, as stated here lately by them. It seems like HPOU is just reaching for technical things, where there are no REAL issues wrong with her. I have never heard Annise say anything that any other politician has not said when it concerned the budget. I’m sure if she could increase the budget she would. Let’s use common sense. At least the City of Houston has not cut police officers jobs, where others have. Like New York…
Just seems like Gary is spending a lot of time around Gene. More than he has ever spent around any other elected official.