Former Dallas police Officer Amber Guyger (center) leaves the Frank Crowley Courts Building in downtown Dallas. A reader is glad to see Guyger made parole.
Tom Fox/Staff Photographer
Give her peace
Re: “Ex-officer Guyger gets parole after 7 years — Shooting in 2018 of unarmed Black man in Dallas apartment brought 10-year prison term,” Friday news story.
I was happy to see Amber Guyger getting paroled. She made a mistake after many overtime hours of duty. She killed a man, but it was never murder. It was manslaughter.
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Her physical condition caused the error, and it seemed that the city of Dallas and her department didn’t want to share the responsibility. She was the other victim in this case, and she has been punished enough. Give her peace.
It’s the Texas way
Re: “Greg Abbott’s flip-flop on Texas education — The governor no longer believes in a bedrock conservative value,” by Glenn Rogers, online column.
When the state neglects public schools, it forgets more than Article 7 of the Texas Constitution. It forsakes the Texas Revolutionaries who penned this grievance in the Texas Declaration of Independence, their brethren still besieged at the Alamo: “[Mexico] has failed to establish any public system of education, although possessed of almost boundless resources…that unless a people are educated and enlightened, it is idle to expect the continuance of civil liberty, or the capacity for self-government.”
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If public education was dear enough for the Texas revolutionaries to risk it all, why not preserve their legacy and support it better today? Instead, politicians say “government schools” like a slur, but they are the guardians.
Certainly, public education is not a perfect institution, but one worth perfecting nonetheless through local control and bipartisan support. Let’s bathe Texas’ baby without discarding it.
Underfunding and overregulation characterize conservative Texas governance, but Edmund Burke, the father of political conservatism, promoted “a disposition to preserve.”
Denounce flaws without renouncing “existing materials.” Support public schools. Right or left, it’s the Texas way.
Cassie Payne Webb, Allen
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Applauding for Mesquite
Re: “Tenants prevail in battle over complex — 150 tenants awarded $500,000 to relocate from trouble apartments with help from the city, advocates,” Monday news story.
Thank you for this front-page story covering the many years of deplorable living conditions for Tradewind Apartments in Mesquite. Finally, the apartments are condemned, and tenants have been relocated.
When we purchased our home within blocks of Tradewind in 1979, the apartments were about 12 years old and a nice place to live. Over the years due mostly to poor management and maintenance, the apartments deteriorated, becoming not only an eyesore for the neighborhood but an unsafe place for tenants.
I applaud the city of Mesquite for persistence condemning Tradewind Apartments and particularly Assistant City Manager Raymond Rivas for supporting those who fought back until the 264-unit dilapidated buildings were evacuated.
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My next question is, “Now what?” In my opinion, the best thing for the neighborhood and the city is to bulldoze the buildings. I suspect it would be too cost-prohibitive to properly remodel what has turned into a slum and an unsafe place to reside.
Millie Arnold, Mesquite
Vote for Cornyn
In 1954, Strom Thurmond was elected U.S. senator from South Carolina by a write-in vote. So, a precedent has been set for this type of vote.
The people of Texas who want to see John Cornyn remain as our senator should write in his name on Election Day.
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E. B. Shiller, Grapevine
Cruz’s role on Jan. 6
Re: “Senators clash over Smith’s Trump prosecution,” Wednesday news story.
That Sen. Ted Cruz lashed out at Jack Smith during a Senate hearing is understandable given Cruz’s own role on Jan. 6. Even after the rioters left the Capitol, Cruz still proposed that Congress delay the electoral vote count for 10 days.
Six years later, after numerous hand recounts and signature audits, payments of hundreds of millions of dollars by Fox News for platforming false accusations about voting machines, Cyber Ninjas hired by Arizona Republicans examining ballots for bamboo fibers and false accusations of Georgia poll workers by Rudy Giuliani, those who have chosen to believe the 2020 election was stolen still largely hold that belief.
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In a late-night call on Jan. 6 to Vice President Mike Pence’s counsel, John Eastman urged that Pence should commit a “minor violation” of the Electoral Count Act and adjourn the Senate for 10 days per Cruz’s proposal.
It is plausible that Cruz’s proposal to delay was intended to further the argument that the Electoral Count Act had already been violated and create the argument that the only legal path forward was to throw the presidential election into the House of Representatives, where each state got one vote and Republicans controlled more states.
That was the final option laid out in the John Eastman strategy memo on how to undo the popular election results. Cruz, who had clerked with Eastman early in his career, would have reason to be concerned if phone records showed they were collaborating.
When asked, Eastman took the Fifth. Cruz refused to provide a clear yes or no.
Bill Luthans, Dallas/Lake Highlands
Check out ‘Silent Spring’
Re: “Trump says tech firms agree to ‘self-police,’” Wednesday news story.
For those who have confidence in President Donald Trump’s notion that corporate tech firms will self-police, may I recommend Rachel Carson’s seminal 1962 book, Silent Spring.
Andrew L. Norton, Mesquite
A fox guarding a hen house
So, the AI developers will police themselves. Reminds me of the fox guarding the hen house. Or maybe a president/real estate magnet wanting to set interest rates for the country.