Posted on 09/22/2015 1:07:56 PM PDT by don-o
AUSTIN - Texas taxpayers could be asked to pitch in more than half a million dollars to help the city of Waco and McLennan County pay for costs associated with the Twin Peaks shootout and its aftermath.
City and county officials plan to ask for criminal justice funds from Gov. Greg Abbott’s office to help pay for staffing, incarceration, autopsies and other costs related to the bloody May 17 incident in which nine people were killed and 18 wounded as police were involved in a clash between rival bikers.
Discussions about state assistance for the costs associated with the shootout have been ongoing at least since June, according to an email obtained by the San Antonio Express-News from Abbott’s office.
The city so far has added up about $300,000 to $350,000 in costs that it will seek to recoup through the criminal justice funds, said Frank Patterson, emergency management coordinator for Waco and McLennan County.
The funds available through Abbott’s office come from state general revenue, according to the governor’s office.
McLennan County expects to apply initially for up to $270,000, said Dustin Chapman, legal/grants specialist for the county. Chapman gave that estimate earlier and confirmed this week through Patterson that the amount hadn’t changed.
Patterson said officials have started the application process and are in communication with the governor’s office.
“Now we are just gathering the final cost,” he said. “Costs are coming in slowly.”
Besides the cost of the autopsies, Patterson said, the city faced extra salary expenses for personnel who were redirected from their regular duties and worked overtime, along with support such as barricades and emergency lighting. Some expenses are associated with biker rallies that occurred subsequent to the shootout, he said.
“It’s outside of what our normal budget and normal operations would have been, similar to what you have when you have a natural disaster or other type of event,” Patterson said.
Patterson said his understanding is that if the localities incur additional costs, they could apply for additional funding.
Chapman said county costs included housing people who had been arrested and overtime.
“Any time a county is faced with these kinds of unexpected and burdensome costs, the governor’s office does have those funds available,” Chapman said. He said Abbott’s office would go through submitted costs to help ascertain what is eligible for reimbursement.
“Being on (Interstate) 35, the vast majority weren’t from McLennan County. We just have to deal with it. It happened here,” Chapman said.
In a June 13 email to Abbott, his Deputy Chief of Staff Julie Rathgeber said that grant applications had been opened for the city and county and relayed that she had talked with Rep. Charles “Doc” Anderson, R-Waco, about the anticipated request for funding.
If Abbott has any balls, he will reject the claims. Waco (and McLennan County) need to suffer for what they’ve done!
I’m still waiting to hear whose bullets killed the nine victims.
Wait until the lawsuits start.
IBTG
Taxpayers are going to pay a lot more.
Sure looks like a lot of cops shot guys in black leather outfits.
This will bankrupt Waco.
If Abbott has any balls, he will reject the claims. Waco (and McLennan County) need to suffer for what they’ve done!
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I agree 100%. If Waco wants to file some claims, they should file them with BATF and the Obama regime in general. I strongly suspect it was the feds who led/directed this provocation operation gone horribly wrong. The feds are sitting on their evidence tighter than they’re sitting on Hillary’s emails.
The evidence collectively must be a doozy.
“This will bankrupt Waco.”
If in the end, it turns out that this was a setup and the Waco cops had themselves a shooting gallery, then Waco should go bankrupt! And with that bankruptcy there needs to be a parallel prosecution of the cops, the sheriff, the DA’s Office, and the local courts. The “good people” of Waco need to have it all laid out in front of them and the world to see. Those who actually formulated the plan need to go to jail for a very long time.
Make the BATFE fund this from their budget.
Courts are mindful of the stakes, and if the state screws up big enough, plaintiffs will lose. If the incident involves only one plaintiff, the judges are more comfortable finding wrongdoing by the state (assuming there is in fact wrongdoing) because the damages are contained and manageable. Big and costly mistakes bring out the heavy legal mumbo-jumbo, and the state wins.
Courts are outcome driven, not precedent or justice driven.
“Make the BATFE fund this from their budget.”
First we need to find out in great detail, who in Law Enforcement was involved. Certainly the Waco Law Enforcement “Establishment” is involved. They are most likely the “small fish in the pond,” but they also have the least money to fight claims of murder under color of authority and prosecutorial abuse, so force them to expose who else was involved. Then go after them too.
It’s all about the Benjamins.
Emergent Motion to Vacate Gag Order Based on Abelino Reyna’s Unclean Hands
http://www.wacobikerjustice.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/ccasupp.pdf
To compound all of this, it is now abundantly clear that Relator comes to this Court with unclean hands. Mr. Clendennen has been denied his free speech rights for more than two months and Relator has succeeded in persuading this Court to issue a stay and thereby continue the denial of such rights while, at the same time, Relator goes right on making statements to the media. For that reason alone, Mr. Clendennen submits that the stay issued by this Court was improvidently granted and requests the
Court to dissolve the stay as soon as practical.
“If Abbott has any balls, he will reject the claims. Waco (and McLennan County) need to suffer for what they’ve done!”
Most of the bikers were not from Waco. They should pay Waco for helping to clean up their trash.
So I take it that for you, cops murdering citizens is “taking out the trash?”
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