Cop politics

Some early reactions to DPS: Rick Cofer, who has been active for years in local Democratic politics and has worked on both sides of criminal law, as both a prosecutor and now as a defense attorney, believes that it's a big mistake for APD to ask for  from the state Department of Public Safety in patrolling city streets. He's been tweeting up a storm:

For what it's worth, DPS did not mention any marijuana in the information it provided to the Statesman:

In the collaboration's first five days, DPS says troopers have recovered six vehicles, and seized 174 grams of cocaine, 40 grams of heroin, 127,415 grams of methamphetamine and 11 firearms. The state agency said troopers have also conducted 15 crash investigations.

...Through Monday, DPS says its officers on the task force conducted over 1,570 traffic stops and wrote 765 citations. During that time they say officers also made 52 felony and 31 misdemeanor arrests, and stopped three large-scale street takeover events, like those from February that led Abbott to create a taskforce aimed at curbing the illegal events.

I've put in a request to the Travis County Jail to try to find out what types of arrests DPS has been making. We'll see...

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