Free Republic

On 16 November 2016, an off-duty security guard, Melvin Stephens, shot and killed a man who charged at him up stairs at his apartment complex. The incident occurred in Austin, Texas. The two had been in a confrontation earlier. The man killed, Dedric Earl, had scissors that were discovered at the scene. Stephens called 911 to report the shooting. Stephens was arrested and jailed because of statements he made to police. Bail was set at $125,000. It was more than Stephens could raise or afford. He spent over one and a half years in jail, from November 2016, to...

State Sen. Carlos Uresti, a San Antonio Democrat, announced he will resign from office effective Thursday. He was convicted by a federal jury on 11 felony charges in February... Four months after his felony conviction, state Sen. Carlos Uresti announced today he will step down from office effective Thursday. Uresti is scheduled to be sentenced June 26 after being found guilty in February by a federal jury on 11 felony charges in connection with his involvement in a now-defunct San Antonio oilfield-services company that defrauded investors. The San Antonio Democrat has indicated he will appeal his conviction.

@realDonaldTrump “The highest level of bias I’ve ever witnessed in any law enforcement officer.” Trey Gowdy on the FBI’s own, Peter Strzok. Also remember that they all worked for Slippery James Comey and that Comey is best friends with Robert Mueller. A really sick deal, isn’t it? 9:03 PM · Jun 17, 2018 ______ The Democrats should get together with their Republican counterparts and work something out on Border Security & Safety. Don’t wait until after the election because you are going to lose! 8:49 PM · Jun 17, 2018 ______ Why was the FBI’s sick loser, Peter Strzok, working...

Nearly 220 Texas school districts allow school staff to be armed for defense of themselves and their students. The Corpus Christi Caller-Times reports that the exact number of school districts allowing armed staff sits at 217. At the beginning of February there were just over 170 Texas districts allowing armed staff, but that number grew as district after district responded to Parkland and other school shootings by changing policies to allow staff to defend their students.

Image from reddit.com Governor Gregg Abbott has been a friend to Second Amendment supporters in Texas. After the tragic shooting at the Santa Fe High School, he held several meetings to come up with suggestions to improve school safety. In the Longview News-Journal, former Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson writes that these firearm related measures are what Governor Abbot will send to the legislature as part of his plan. Patterson contends that none of these measures will infringe on Second Amendment rights. From Longview newsjournal.com: â–  1. Closing reporting gaps for federal background checks by creating a case management system...

A group of gun control advocating students took out a full-page ad in the Houston Chronicle, which was paid for by Everytown for Gun Safety, The Hill reported. The ad was a personal letter to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) detailing why the students demand stricter gun control laws.

Teenagers armed themselves with a megaphone and gathered outside the Governor’s Mansion in downtown Austin Sunday night to try and get attention for their cause. “Ted Cruz, Greg Abbott, Texas legislators -- for as long as this is happening, we will stand to make sure that common-sense gun laws are enacted,” yelled one of the speakers through the device... The students also staged a “die-in,” laying down on the ground for 23 minutes as if they were dead -- one minute for every school shooting since the start of the school year... These students also want to end the culture...

Texas bishops are actually supporting end-of-life directives that allow Texas hospitals to kill their patients much the same as U.K. hospitals did to Alfie Evans and Charlie Guard. The Texas Advance Directives Act (TADA) allows hospitals, not patients or family members to decide when to withdraw life-sustaining care from patients if doctors deem continued care to be futile. The Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops (TCCB) last year showed strong support for the measure: "Human intervention that would deliberately cause, hasten or unnecessarily prolong the patient's death violates the dignity of the human person. ... TCCB strongly supports §166.046 as indispensable for ensuring dignity at end of life."  In other...

A suspect was fatally shot and killed in a confrontation with a Homeland Security Officer in San Antonio Tuesday morning. An agent on the city’s south side opened fire on the person around 7 a.m., police told my SanAntionio.com. The unidentified suspect died on the scene and the details leading up to the shooting were not immediately clear.

Notorious street-gang MS-13 has reportedly ordered its members to “take out” police officers in New York; hoping to send a strong message to authorities following a serious crackdown on the group throughout the region. According to the New York Post, the NYPD is on high-alert after a confidential informant told police that gang members were given a green light to murder local police officers; particularly in the nearby town of Hempstead on Long Island. “The police have been making too many arrests and it’s time to take the streets back and take out (shoot) a cop like we do in...

A Honduran man who has repeatedly been deported was sentenced Friday to 24 years in prison for kidnapping his estranged girlfriend in Kansas City, Mo., and raping her while they traveled to New Jersey, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Jersey. Jose Amaya-Vasquez, 33, was arrested in Texas in 2005 for attempting to enter the country illegally. He was released, but failed to show up for a court date, records show. In June, 2014, Kansas City police arrested him for domestic assault. He was turned over to immigration officials and deported. Three months later, immigration officers arrested him...

When JoJo McKibben was the victim of a hit-and-run on April 3 as she biked to work, she wasn't all that surprised. She was hit while biking by a drunk driver last summer and has come to expect that cars won't realize she's riding on two wheels. McKibben's boyfriend Brendan Sharpe said he has also been seriously injured by cars while he's biked in Austin, once in 2009 and again in 2015... Katie Delleoz, the executive director of Bike Austin, said she personally has nearly been struck at the same intersection McKibben was hit at last week

Over the last couple of weeks, a dramatic saga has taken place between open carry advocates and Olmos Park police in Texas. The incident began on Monday, March 26 when CJ Grisham, the founder of Open Carry Texas (OCT), put in a call to Olmos Park Police Chief Rene Valenciano. Grisham questioned Valenciano's stance on open carry and whether or not open carry activists would have issues if a demonstration was held in the San Antonio suburb. On Tuesday, March 27, OCT held an open carry rally in Olmos Park, which resulted in the arrest of three OCT members, including...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 6, 2018 Attorney General Announces Zero-Tolerance Policy for Criminal Illegal Entry Attorney General Jeff Sessions today notified all U.S. Attorney’s Offices along the Southwest Border of a new “zero-tolerance policy” for offenses under 8 U.S.C. § 1325(a), which prohibits both attempted illegal entry and illegal entry into the United States by an alien. The implementation of the Attorney General’s zero-tolerance policy comes as the Department of Homeland Security reported a 203 percent increase in illegal border crossings from March 2017 to March 2018, and a 37 percent increase from February 2018 to March 2018—the largest month-to-month...

Along the south shore of Lady Bird Lake east of Interstate 35, Oracle has built a new campus that will eventually house 10,000 employees. At the end of 2015, one of the world's largest software companies announced it was expanding in Austin with the construction of a 565,000-square-foot campus located on South Lakeshore Boulevard just west of South Pleasant Valley Road, that sits on 40 acres of waterfront property. "We wanted to be in downtown Austin on the river and specifically I wanted to be in downtown Austin on the river because I thought it would be great to take...

..at free speech event in Texas found GUILTY of recruiting for the Islamic StateErick Jamal Hendricks plotted to kill Pamela Geller and hundreds who attended AFDI’s free speech event in Garland, Texas. He was found guilty of aiding and abetting ISIS. Once again, the family covers and sanctions jihad and blames islamophobia (in other words, the victims). His mother told the Observer in 2016 that her son was “patriotic,” and was facing trumped-up charges because he is a converted Muslim. Hendricks had contacted Al-Ghazi over social media to recruit him months earlier. Al-Ghazi said Hendricks tested his religious knowledge...

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, went on offense in the wake of Texas primary victory on Tuesday and released an ad targeting his Democratic challenger in a country jingle that warns, “If you’re going to run in Texas, you can’t be a liberal, man.” Cruz tweeted the clip, which played to the tune of Alabama’s “If You’re Gonna Play in Texas.” The tweet came shortly after Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-Texas, easily advanced to the November matchup. O’Rourke faces an uphill climb. Cruz received more votes than every Democratic candidate in their primary combined. FIRST LISTEN: our new 60-second statewide radio ad...

A group of students at the University of Texas, San Antonio plans to start publishing a “No Whites Allowed” (NWA) magazine. According to a Facebook event titled “Zine Release,” the magazine will be revealed on March 1 at La Botanica, which describes itself as “Texas' first vegan restaurant with a full bar and performance and event venue.” "So you're saying that because segregation happened, it's fine to be racist against Whites?" “Thursday at La Botanica from 8-11pm there will be the NWA Zine release party! This zine specifically features and promotes black and brown lgbtqa creatives,” the description states. “We...

More Democratic voters than Republicans have cast ballots ahead of next month’s primary elections in Texas, in what some party officials interpret as a new sign that a blue wave is building ahead of the midterm elections. The Texas Secretary of State’s office said 168,000 voters had cast ballots in the Democratic primary in person or by mail in the state’s ten largest counties through the end of Sunday. By contrast, 138,000 voters had cast ballots in the Republican primary. It is the first time in a decade that Texas Democrats have turned in more ballots than Republicans at this...

A family that lost eight members in the Texas church massacre this month filed a notice of claim on Tuesday accusing the Air Force of negligence for not having filed paperwork that could have stopped the gunman from buying his weapons.