Houston Police Officers’ Union<\/a>, opened the confrontation with a blistering critique of council members, accusing them of ignoring officer safety and prioritizing political messaging over street-level realities.<\/p>\n“You’re playing politics with our officers,” Griffith said, arguing that rank-and-file officers are left to deal with the consequences of policy decisions made in City Hall. He warned that limiting cooperation on certain immigration-related warrants could create dangerous gaps in enforcement.<\/p>\n
“If something happens and we don’t take somebody in on one of these warrants and they go and kill somebody tomorrow\u2026 guess what? We’re on the hook,” Griffith said.<\/p>\n
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He also pointed to broader city concerns\u2014citing infrastructure frustrations and service delays\u2014as evidence that council priorities are misplaced.<\/p>\n
“Don’t tell me we don’t have bigger issues in this city,” Griffith said. “We can’t get our water cheap, we cannot get our heavy trash picked up\u2026 and now we’re worried about this\u201474 traffic stops last year.”<\/p>\n
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But council members quickly pushed back, accusing Griffith of escalating rhetoric and undermining the legislative process.<\/p>\n
District D Council Member Carolyn Evans-Shabazz sharply rebuked Griffith, calling his behavior “disrespectful” and criticizing both his public comments and social media posts.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Council member Carolyn Evans-Shabazz during a city council meeting as Mayor Sylvester Turner requested all City Council members to return to the chamber at City Hall on Wednesday, April 13, 2022 in Houston, the first such requirement since May 2020.<\/p>\n
Karen Warren\/Staff photographer<\/p>\n
“Your behavior\u2026 was disrespectful last week,” Plummer said. “Your job is to do what we approve. So you get busy.”<\/p>\n
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The exchange escalated when Griffith directly addressed\u00a0Evans-Shabazz, accusing her of previously labeling law enforcement as racist.<\/p>\n
“You keep talking about how you support law enforcement\u2014don’t ever let me catch you saying that again,” Griffith said. “Because last week you said we were racist.”<\/p>\n
Shabazz pushed back immediately, telling Griffith he was “out of order,” while defending her remarks and challenging his tone in the chamber.<\/p>\n
“You are really out of order,” she responded.<\/p>\n
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Griffith continued, saying he took offense to the comments and claimed they reflected the views of thousands of officers.<\/p>\n
“I take offense to that and about 5,400 officers take offense to that,” he said.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Doug Griffith, president of the Houston Police Officers\u2019 Union, calls for the resignation or dismissal of Peter Stout, president and CEO of the Houston Forensic Science Center, during a news conference on Wednesday, July 26, 2023 in Houston. The police union official pointed out a backlog in evidence processing as the reason as the reason for Stout to resign or be dismissed.<\/p>\n
Brett Coomer\/Staff photographer<\/p>\n
Shabazz responded that Griffith’s conduct in the meeting was inappropriate and suggested his behavior contributed to broader tensions between police leadership and city residents.<\/p>\n
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“Your behavior has been really inappropriate,” she said. “And I hope the other officers don’t act and speak as you do, because that may be why we have a problem here.”<\/p>\n
Despite the sharp exchange, Griffith and\u00a0Shabazz later apologized to each other before the meeting concluded.<\/p>\n
The political fallout intensified further when Council Member Alejandra Salinas called on Mayor John Whitmire to take immediate legal action to protect the city\u2019s funding and challenge the state\u2019s threats in court.<\/p>\n
In a letter and statement sent to the mayor\u2019s office,\u00a0Salinas urged the city to go to court immediately\u2014asking for a Temporary Restraining Order and a declaratory judgment to confirm the ordinance is legal. She said Houston shouldn’t be forced to choose between rolling back a policy it believes is lawful or risking millions in public safety funding.<\/p>\n
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“Houston has a clear legal path forward and does not have to choose between repealing a lawful immigration ordinance or losing funding,” Salinas said, adding that a court could act quickly to block the funding withdrawal and provide clarity for city leaders.<\/p>\n
The letter calls for immediate court intervention to prevent the state from pulling funds while the legality of the ordinance is reviewed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Houston Council Member Evans-Shabazz and Police Officers Union chief Doug Griffith go at it at City Hall over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251105,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1836,88494,1704,56,58,57],"class_list":{"0":"post-251104","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-chronnews","9":"tag-chronpolitics","10":"tag-chronstaff","11":"tag-houston","12":"tag-houston-headlines","13":"tag-houston-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251104\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}