Unfair Park from p6 her purse and threatened the group, scream- ing, “You turn off that phone or I swear to God I’ll fucking shoot your ass.” The suit says, “It was in this moment that Banerjee was terrified and reasonably feared that her life and the lives of her friends would end in a Plano parking lot at the hands of a racist lunatic.” Throughout the attack, Banerjee made every reasonable effort to de-escalate the situation, the law- suit says. Officers with the Plano Police Depart- ment eventually showed up to separate Up- ton from Banerjee and her friends. Upton told officers that she attacked the women because they were “videoing and saying all of this shit that I wasn’t doing. And that’s what they do. Just like the Black people.” She also told the officers she was “Native- American” and “Mexican-American” and “lives in a $1.5 million house.” Despite the video of the attack and Upton’s refusal to take a breath test for alcohol, she wasn’t arrested and was allowed to be driven home. The next day, police arrested her on two misdemeanor charges, assault causing bodily injury and making terroristic threats. The inci- dent is being investigated as a hate crime. Banerjee claims in her suit that the attack left her with severe emotional distress, and she now lives in fear for her and her family’s safety. Walker said Banerjee is being treated for PTSD because of the attack. “It really rocked her,” Walker said. One of Banerjee’s friends who was also at- tacked that night, Bidisha Rudra, filed a simi- lar suit against Upton last month. They’re seeking monetary damages to compensate Banerjee for her physical and emotional dis- tress. Walker said the damages also are meant to send a message to Upton and others. “We also need to send an important mes- sage to the larger society that … it’s got to stop,” Walker said. “One important compo- nent of exemplary or punitive damages is the deterrent effect that it has when other individuals that might be prone or inclined to act in a similar fashion as Ms. Upton at some future date see what happens to Ms. Upton because of what she did and how she conducted herself. Maybe it gives them that moment of pause when they’re in the next parking lot and about to come unglued or come off the rails on their own.” Walker said Upton’s actions are indefen- sible, but he speculated what defense she may offer in court. A common defense in sit- uations like this that Upton may use, Walker said, is the idea that alcohol may have gotten the better of her that night. Given Upton’s refusal to take a breath test, Walker said, she might have a hard time arguing she was drunk. If Upton were clearly drunk, police may not have let her leave after refusing the test. “We’ll see what [the police] have to say, but I have to presume that they did not deter- mine she was intoxicated,” Walker said. “I don’t even think she has that in her arsenal.” He’s not sure how to explain Upton’s ac- 8 tions “other than she’s an overt racist,” Walker said. “She has a lot of hate written on her heart, and she acted that day in a matter totally consistent with her beliefs and her views. Sometimes it’s Occam’s razor: The most obvious explanation is the correct one.” ▼ POLITICS SYMBOLIC GESTURES W SEVERAL OUTGOING AND RETIRED REPUBLICANS HAVE COME OUT AGAINST LT. GOV. DAN PATRICK. BY PATRICK STRICKLAND hen outgoing Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley appeared on WFAA’s interview program “Y’all-itics” last month, he made an endorse- ment some found surprising. The longtime Republican said he wouldn’t support Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s reelection campaign. Instead, Whitley threw his weight be- hind Mike Collier, the Democratic candidate hoping to unseat Patrick. Unlike Patrick, the judge said, Collier understood the need for “local control.” Whitley blamed Patrick, in part, for a 2019 bill that limits a county’s ability to raise property taxes and for the state’s failure to provide additional funding despite county jails holding incarcerated people who ought to be in state facilities. State Sen. Kel Seliger, a Republican from Amarillo who’s butted heads with Patrick in the past, told the Texas Tribune that he’d also vote for Collier in November. In a press release at the time, Patrick’s chief strategist, Allen Blakemore, responded by call- ing Seliger and Whitley “dinosaurs” who were “desperately searching for relevance in an age when voters hold political leaders accountable to stand up for Texas values.” In recent years, Patrick has emerged as an influential figure among the Texas GOP’s ultra-conservative flank, railing against Re- publican rivals such as House speaker Dade Phelan and pushing for more hardline legis- lation on issues like abortion. But the defections continued. In late September, former Lt. Gov. Bill Ratliff said he’d vote for Collier. “As a former elected Republican, I’m putting partisanship aside and joining the growing number of Repub- licans voting for the man we think is best for Texas, and that’s Mike Collier,” he said in a press release issued by Collier’s cam- paign. Along with Whitley, Seliger and state ▼ HOUSING POST-PANDEMIC PROTECTIONS D A screenshot of the Plano attack video. Esmeralda Upton Rep. Lyle Larson, former Dallas Mayor Steve Bartlett, former state Rep. Byron Cook and former state Rep. Bennett Ratliff all signed an open letter endorsing Collier. “As a growing state, our Legislature must face Texas’ problems with honesty and transparency,” the letter reads. “From fund- ing public education, to tackling our prop- erty tax system, to ensuring our infrastructure keeps pace with Texas’ growth, to working with — not against — lo- cal leaders, we believe Mike’s skill and cor- porate experience make him best equipped to provide the leadership Texas deserves.” Larson took it a step further on Twitter, describing Patrick as an “awful person” and the “tip of the spear in the culture wars.” Bad press or not, Republican feuding with Patrick hasn’t appeared to hurt him much in the polls. In late September, The Dallas Morning News and the University of Texas at Tyler published a poll that found voters supported Patrick over Collier by 11 percentage points. Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University, said the surveys he has worked on throughout this election season have consistently found Patrick with a lead of between 5 and 10 percentage points. Jones explained that the outgoing Re- publicans represented a “wing of the party that is weaker with each passing day” and that not many GOP voters have followed their lead and backed Collier, who was once a Republican himself. Collier appeals to some conservatives be- cause he’s considered more moderate than some in the Democratic Party, Jones said. Still, he added, “What we’re not seeing is a groundswell of Republicans moving to Col- lier on the basis of the endorsements by three fringe actors within the Republican Party.” Patrick recently launched a statewide campaign tour that will stop in more than 130 cities and towns and is focused on build- ing up support in rural parts of Texas. November’s vote will be a rematch of the 2018 lieutenant governor’s race, when Pat- rick and Collier first faced off against one another. During that election, Patrick won with 51% of the vote to Collier’s 46%. DALLAS IS WORKING ON A PERMANENT ORDINANCE FOR HOUSING PROTECTIONS. BY JACOB VAUGHN uring the pandemic, Dallasites have had additional protections against evictions through an ordinance passed by City Council in April 2020. But the eviction ordinance was never meant to last indefinitely. It’s tied to the gover- nor’s and the mayor’s COVID-19 disaster dec- larations. On Sept. 19, Gov. Greg Abbott extended the disaster declaration until Oct. 19. Mark Melton, founder of Dallas Eviction Advocacy Center, said that although the di- saster declaration will likely last for years, with the governor continuing to renew it, the conditions under which Dallas’ CO- VID-19 eviction ordinance were created don’t really exist today. That’s why some at City Hall are working on changes to the original ordinance, as well as a permanent ordinance that would last long beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. Melton said a recent move to kill the CO- VID-19 eviction ordinance sparked a lot of the discussion, and the City Council would be briefed on it at a Wednesday meeting. The ordinance was allowed to remain in place, but Melton worried that someone would try to revive this effort. So, he reached out to the Apartment Association of Greater Dallas to talk about potential changes to the COVID-19 ordinance that would allow it to be enforced until rental assistance runs out. “We’re now in a position where people aren’t being forced to stay home, the viral spread and the instances of COVID haven’t been as severe,” Melton said. “So, the eco- nomic fallout is different.” The argument to end the eviction protec- tions, Melton explained, was that “the policy reasons that underlie this eviction ordi- nance no longer exist. So, if the reason to have the ordinance was X, Y, and Z, and X, Y, and Z are no longer true, then that must logi- cally mean there’s no reason to have the or- dinance, which isn’t crazy.” Melton said the Dallas Eviction Advocacy Center and Apartment Association of Greater Dallas came up with a deal “with the idea being if we could come up with some common sense policy that we could both push together so we wouldn’t have to draw our swords and fight each other in the bowels of City Hall.” They decided they would put together a revised version of the temporary COVID-19 eviction ordinance so that it made more sense in today’s environment. Under the city’s COVID-19 eviction ordi- nance, tenants have 21 days to respond to their landlord’s notice of possible eviction. If the tenant doesn’t respond, the landlord can start the eviction process on the 22nd day with a notice to vacate. From there, the ten- ant has three days to cough up some money for the missed rent payments, or set up a plan to do so. If there’s still no action, the landlord can file the eviction petition in local court on the 61st day after the initial notice. OCTOBER 27–NOVEMBER 2, 2022 DALLAS OBSERVER CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | CULTURE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS dallasobserver.com
