| UNFAIR PARK | Script Flipped Scrutiny targets Gov. Abbott after deadly hospital shooting. BY PATRICK STRICKLAND F or much of his reelection cam- paign, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has railed against challenger Beto O’Rourke and other Demo- crats for supposedly supporting policies that encourage crime. Now, some Texas Democrats have flipped the script, arguing that Abbott bears respon- sibility for violent crime in the wake of a shooting that killed two at a Dallas hospital. On Oct. 22, Nestor Hernandez, 30, al- legedly killed nurse Jaqueline Pokuaa and social worker Katie Flowers at the Meth- odist Dallas Medical Center. Hernandez, out on parole for aggravated robbery at the time, was wearing a court-ordered ankle monitor. Hernandez, who has several previous fel- ony convictions, had gone to the hospital to visit his girlfriend after she delivered his child. There, he accused her of cheating, hit her in the head with his gun and eventually shot and killed Pokuaa and Flowers, accord- ing to police. Last Thursday, state Rep. Rafael Anchía, a Democrat from Dallas, called for an investi- gation into the decision by the governor-ap- pointed Board of Pardons and Parole to release Hernandez. Hernandez violated the conditions of his parole in March and June, Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia told local broadcaster WFAA. In one instance, he reportedly cut off his ankle monitor. Although he spent 100 days in jail, Hernandez was eventually re- leased again. Located in North Oak Cliff, the hospital sits in Texas House District 103, which An- chía represents. Anchía called for the probe in a letter ad- dressed to Board Chair David Gutierrez, state Auditor Lisa R. Collier and Rene Hino- josa, director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s Parole Division. In the letter, Anchía called for an “imme- diate investigation” into what he called the board’s “failure” to revoke Hernandez’s pa- role before the deadly shooting. “It is my belief that the Board had wide 4 4 discretion to revoke Mr. Hernandez’s release on parole but failed to do so despite multiple parole violations,” Anchía wrote, adding that the decisions taken by the board “led to the release of a dangerous criminal who mur- dered two members of our community.” In a press release last week, Anchía took a sharper shot at the Republican governor. Wikimedia Commons “Greg Abbott’s Board of Pardons and Paroles failed to revoke parole for a violent offender and, as a result, two people were killed and our community is now in mourning,” he said in the statement. Throughout the midterm election sea- son, Abbott has lashed out at Democrats over crime. During a debate with O’Rourke earlier this year, he blamed the Democratic hopeful for supposedly supporting policies like “defunding the police,” a charge O’Rourke denies. The governor’s press team did not re- sponded to the Observer’s request for com- ment on Anchía’s call for an investigation. The Board of Pardons and Paroles also failed to respond. O’Rourke has also pinned the blame for crime on Abbott. “Violent crime has sky- rocketed on Greg Abbott’s watch as he has made us less safe,” he tweeted last week. “He failed Texas.” Matt Angle, director of the Lone Star Project, a group that backs Democrats in Texas, said Abbott’s campaign focus on crime was only an electoral tactic. “The real big lie is any notion that Greg Abbott cares about crime as anything other than a campaign issue,” he said by email. “Abbott could care less about the dangers and death of violent crime. He sees it as a ve- hicle for votes.” Saying that the Dallas hospital shooting “horribly exposes both Greg Abbott’s hypoc- risy and failure to address violent crime,” Angle added, “The parole system Abbott controls released a dangerous, unguarded criminal onto the public without warning anyone. Abbott’s indifference and incompe- tence left two innocent Texans dead.” Earlier this week, Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot put out a statement correcting inaccurate claims that his office had played a part in Hernandez’s release. Dallas Police Chief Garcia called Hernan- dez’s release “an abhorrent failure of our criminal justice system.” Abbott has blamed Democrats for crime throughout the election season. ▼ CITY COUNCIL MEDIANS OFF LIMITS L THE DALLAS CITY COUNCIL HAS BANNED STANDING ON MEDIANS. BY JACOB VAUGHN ast week, the Dallas City Council made it illegal to stand on medians less than 6 feet wide. Billed as a pedes- trian public safety measure, the ordinance allows officers with the Dallas Police De- partment and Dallas City Marshal’s Office to dish out fines of up to $500 to anyone who stands on one of Dallas’ medians. Dallas City Council member Adam Ba- zaldua was the only one to vote against the ordinance. Bazaldua, who tried to pass an or- dinance to get DPD to stop arresting and cit- ing people for low-level marijuana possession because he thinks police have better things to do, thinks they also have better things to do than keeping people off medians. He said the new measure is contradictory to the city’s efforts to deprioritize low-level offenses. “Not only is it contradicting; it’s also counterproductive and will more than likely result in even more discriminatory enforce- ment than we saw with marijuana,” Ba- zaldua said by text last Thursday afternoon. “It was definitely taking steps backwards for our city, and I believe it to be regressive to work we were doing in the other direction.” The idea behind the ordinance is that it’s unsafe for people to stand on medians be- cause they may be struck by a vehicle. But do you know who else stands on medians? Pan- handlers. And the city doesn’t like them. That said, they can’t just outright ban pan- handling. Courts have ruled that asking for help (such as money) is protected speech under the First Amendment. So rather than come up with an ordi- nance to directly get rid of all of the panhan- dlers, Dallas created a roundabout way to potentially put a dent in their numbers. That roundabout way is the no-standing-on-me- dians ordinance. The Oklahoma City Coun- cil passed a similar ordinance in 2015 as a public safety measure for pedestrians, and later got sued for it by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Oklahoma. The ACLU won the case, and Oklahoma City was ordered to cough up over $1 million in legal fees, according to the daily newspaper The Oklahoman. Staffers with the city attorney’s office ex- plained during meetings on the ordinance that as long as it’s applied across the board, there shouldn’t be much standing for legal challenges. But will it be enforced across the board? It’s hard to say for sure, given some of the comments shared by DPD and the Dallas City Marshal’s Office at last week’s City Council meeting. As reported by The Dallas Morning News, DPD Chief Eddie Garcia said the ordinance would be a low priority for his officers. “Obviously, we can enforce. We would use discretion whenever this would occur,” Garcia said. “But really, the reality of it is that it would not necessarily be our pri- mary focus with our other priorities in the city that we need to focus on.” Interim City Marshal David Pughes said his officers wouldn’t be patrolling medians to enforce the new ordinance, and that peo- ple who get stuck on a median as they’re try- ing to cross the street wouldn’t get a citation. Instead, enforcement is most likely to oc- cur when marshals assist City Homeless So- lutions and Crisis management staff as they try to provide services to the homeless. If you squint your eyes a little and look at that statement for a bit, it starts to seem like what the city is saying is this ordinance will most likely be enforced against panhandlers. However, Pughes said his officers have dis- cretion over the enforcement of this ordi- nance and have other options besides issuing a fine, such as trying to connect peo- ple to city services. The ordinance may provide an avenue for tackling panhandlers, but it’s primarily meant to protect people, even the panhan- dlers. Standing on medians is dangerous for them and everyone else, the city argues. Dallas does have a pedestrian safety problem, but will this ordinance help? Dal- las City Council member Omar Narvaez moved to amend the ordinance so it could be reviewed every year, saying this amendment was necessary because there’s not enough evidence on whether standing on a median poses a public safety risk to pedestrians. That’s when City Council member Paul Ridley ask for someone on city staff to pres- ent evidence in support of the ordinance’s public safety goals. Ghassan “Gus” Khankarli, the director of Dallas’ Department of Trans- portation, told the City Council there were 68 pedestrian fatalities in Dallas in 2021. Com- pared to last year, 2022 has seen a slight in- crease to 70. “So, definitely, we’ve got a trend that is not very favorable and this ordinance will help us in that effort to try and reverse that,” he said. But, he said many of >> p6 MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2014 NOVEMBER 3–9, 2022 DALLAS OBSERVER DALLAS OBSERVER | CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | MOVIES | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | FEATURE | SCHUTZE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS | CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | CULTURE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS dallasobserver.com dallasobserver.com