More than two years after an arsonist torched the Governor’s Mansion, the Department of Public Safety still hasn’t made any arrests, but investigators say they have identified persons of interest in the case.
Department of Public Safety
Posted in
Transportation
Lawmakers File “Complete Streets” Bill
Lawmakers today filed a bill they hope will help drivers, cyclists and pedestrians safely share the roads.
Posted in
Demographics
TribBlog: DPS: No, Really, Don’t Go to Mexico
In case you were planning any trips to violence-ridden Mexico, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety says don’t — again.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
Testing the Evidence
In police departments across Texas, tens of thousands of rape kits have been sitting on the shelves of property storage rooms for years — thanks to strained budgets, overworked crime labs and a law enforcement philosophy that such kits are primarily useful as evidence if a stranger committed the assault. Victims’ rights advocates and some lawmakers say they’ll work to pass legislation this year to take that evidence out of storage and create a DNA database that would help track rapists and perhaps even identify those who have been wrongly convicted. “I think we owe it to every person who has been raped,” says state Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
TribBlog: LBB Makes Criminal Justice Recommendations
Criminal justice in Texas got a fourfold performance review from the Legislative Budget Board today. From incarceration projections to the cost per bed for prisoners, the board broke down the state’s public safety performance in cold, hard numbers.
Posted in
State Government
TribBlog: DPS Giving Drivers a Break
Some of the 1.2 million Texas drivers whose licenses have been suspended because they failed to pay expensive traffic ticket surcharges can catch a big break right now from the Department of Public Safety.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
TribWeek: In Case You Missed It
The Trib staff on the sweeping cuts in the proposed House budget, Grissom on what’s lost and not found at the Department of Public Safety, Galbraith on the wind power conundrum, Hamilton on higher ed’s pessimistic budget outlook, Stiles and Swicegood debut an incredibly useful bill tracker app, Ramsey interviews Rick Perry on the cusp of his second decade as governor, Aguilar on a Mexican journalist’s quest for asylum in the U.S., Ramshaw on life expectancy along the border, M. Smith on the obstacles school districts face in laying off teachers and yours truly talks gambling and the Rainy Day Fund with state Rep. Jim Pitts: The best of our best from January 17 to 21, 2011.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
How Do You Lose a 24-Foot Boat?
Or a $74,000 piece of radio equipment? Or more than 150 handguns and rifles? Those are just a few of the nearly 1,500 items that the Texas Department of Public Safety reported stolen or lost in the last decade. Some of the assets might still be in the possession of DPS or possibly were sold, but the agency’s inventory system is so poor that it’s hard to know what’s actually missing.
Posted in
Demographics
Rick Perry on “Sanctuary Cities”
Gov. Rick Perry says cities shouldn’t require police officers to do immigration checks but shouldn’t prevent it, either.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
Capitol Insecurity
When Andrew Cuomo took office as governor of New York earlier this month, he ordered the removal of the security barricades limiting access to his state’s Capitol. “This Capitol has become a physical metaphor for the isolation and alienation of our people,” he said in his inauguration speech. He could easily have been talking about Texas.
