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APD, Travis County Sheriff’s Department discuss blood draw program

by SHELTON GREEN / KVUE News

Austin police will be out in force Sunday evening, the same night of the Super Bowl for yet another “No Refusal Weekend.” That’s when police give people they stop for suspected drunk driving a choice of either taking a breathalyzer or having their blood drawn.

KVUE News has learned that on Friday the Austin Police Department is meeting with the Travis County Sheriff’s Office so the agencies can come up with a joint blood draw program.

The way it stands now, drivers suspected of drunk driving who are stopped by police on no refusal weekends who refuse a breathalyzer are taken to an area hospital to have their blood drawn.

“Now what we do is go to the hospital but that is not efficient in terms of the down time for our officers. It’s not good for the civilian hospitals in terms of not being able to focus on their patients care”, said Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo.

The chief says he wants to see a program where phlebotomists work out of the Travis County Jail. However, he didn’t say how large of a medical staff the agencies will need.

“We’ve analyzed from the police department perspective what our peak hours are in terms of need, in terms of when we need the coverage, the on duty coverage and then where would be more appropriate in the off-peak hours to have an on-call program for civilian phlebotomist”, said Chief Acevedo.

The “No Refusal” weekends started in Austin on Halloween 2008.

In 2009 Chief Acevedo’s plan to use federal grant money to train APD officers to draw blood was canned.

“We had hoped that by garnering the support of just about every political organization in Central Texas, Travis County Republican Party, Democratic Party, Libertarian Party, Green Party, NAACP, LULAC and a few others that the city council would have seen that people were opposed to not only the police officer administered blood withdrawals, but the no refusal weekend as well but unfortunately the city bureaucracy got in the way of the people and here we are today still waiting for guidelines”, said John Bush with Texans For Accountable Government.

Debbie Russell, the President of the ACLU.Central Texas Chapter told KVUE, “I’m not sure it’s the best use of resources but we’d much rather have medically trained professionals doing this than officers who would only receive a very minimal amount of training and would increase the liability for the city, as well as keep them from actually being on the streets”, she said.

APD and Travis County Sheriff deputies will hammer out a plan on Friday which they’ll take to both the Austin City Manager and the Travis County Commissioner’s Court. From there, it will go to the Austin City Council for approval.

No refusal for Super Bowl weekend starts Sunday at 9 p.m. and goes through early Monday morning.

Originally posted on Kvue.com
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Gun activists protest at police headquarters

Reported by: Gregg Watson

A peaceful protest by more than one-hundred gun activists was held on the steps of the police headquarters Monday.

Participants waved flags and chanted slogans like “come and take it” and “you’re not getting our guns.” They also called the APD “criminals with badges” and the Police Chief “a gun grabbing California commie.”

With U.S. Constitution’s crammed in their gun holsters, Austin protesters said they are sick of local, state and federal officials telling them what they can do with their guns. One Austin protester, John Long said, “That should really worry people whether they are gun owners or not. When state agents can show up and suggest how a business should be run with no legal basis.”

Austin Police Corporal Scott Perry said, “We know they are here. Anybody who wants to protest about something, we allow that.”

Austin talk show host Alex Jones said, “They’re coming in an intimidating property owners and lease holders like HEB to shut it down and make an end run around the constitution,” about the APD.

Jones provided what he says is a law allowing folks to sell guns, even in parking lots, which is one of the things the APD says was happening at gun shows.

There have been suggestions like only letting licensed dealers sell weapons and having a security guard patrol Gun Show parking lots, but the APD says they were just that, suggestions.

The Texas Gun Show has a show planned in a couple of weeks, but the promoter said some of the dealers dropped out after hearing about the APD suggestions, the show has since been canceled.

Originally posted in WeAreAustin.com

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Protesters Upset at Gun Show Closure

by Nancy Zambrano

Dozens of gun rights advocates gather outside the Austin Police Department Headquarters Monday. They blame the department for the possible closing of Austin’s gun show.

It all started after a joint investigation by the ATF and APD found that illegal immigrants and convicted felons were able to buy guns at the North Lamar location.

“Essentially everyday that we were at the gun show we arrested someone with a firearm who couldn’t buy law posses that firearm,” says APD Det. TJ Vineyard.

According to APD in a meeting with HEB, and Austin Marketplace, both who lease the property and rent it out to the gun show, recommendations were made to curb crime.

“There are people who sell a large amount of guns but don’t claim to be dealers,” says Vineyard.

The recommendations included that only gun dealers were allowed to sell firearms, which meant no private sellers. It’s a guideline gun show promoter Darwin Boedeker does not agree with.

“I think they were awful, I think they go against the Second Amendment it’s not right,” says Boedeker.
APD also suggested the promoter provide on-site security to curb gun sales in the parking lot.

Amidst talks of violating a Nuisance Abatement law HEB decided not to allow the event on the property. Monday’s demonstrators including Boedeker say APD is to blame for that decision.

“A lot of strong-arming of HEB where they obviously pressured HEB into making a decision that they didn’t have the full details on,” says Boedeker.

He says most of the arrests made by the ATF involved a different promoter, but APD says the Nuisance Abatement is attached to the property not an individual person.

Many protesters insist shutting down the gun show will only lead to the crime APD is trying to prevent.

“If they shut down these gun shows then what’s going to happen is criminals are going to continue to access guns on the side outside of the gun show,” says John Bush, with Texas For Accountable Government.

Boedeker, the event promoter says he is already looking for a new location to organize another gun show.

This was originally posted on myfoxaustin.com

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Fox 7 News covers Texans for Accountable Government’s Stop Vampire Cops protest!

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Proposal would bar police from drawing blood

Only medical staff could take samples from suspects. By Tony Plohetski (AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF)

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Austin police, who have increasingly collected blood evidence to bolster drunken driving cases, would be blocked from personally gathering such samples under a tentative City Council measure.

According to a draft resolution by Council Member Bill Spelman, officers would not perform such blood draws in order to “protect the health and safety of officers and suspects.”

The measure would require that such evidence be taken by technicians who receive ongoing medical training, in a public health setting and with emergency services immediately available.

Police Chief Art Acevedo has for months publicly discussed the possibility of training officers to collect such blood evidence from drunken driving suspects — a practice that several Texas law enforcement agencies have adopted.

Hospital staff or phlebotomists hired by Austin police currently collect the samples.

Spelman said he hopes the proposal will reduce liability for the city and prevent allegations against officers.

“I think people are going to respond very differently to someone who looks more like a doctor than someone who looks like a police officer,” Spelman said. “I think it is just asking for a lot of complaints and a lot of lawsuits.”

Spelman said Wednesday morning that he had hoped to put the item on the Oct. 22 council agenda. He met with Acevedo later in the day, after which Spelman said he would wait until the end of the week before making a final decision on whether he would move forward and gather co-sponsors.

Mayor Lee Leffingwell said he also is opposed to police officers acting as phlebotomists.

“I think it is a highly invasive procedure, and I think there are all kinds of risks associated with it,” Leffingwell said.

The measure would represent a compromise between Spelman and representatives of several civil libertarian groups, who had wanted Spelman to propose a measure that also would stop so-called no refusal operations. During those initiatives, which are typically conducted on holidays, police seek the blood of suspects who refuse to provide breath samples.

Spelman said he remains concerned about such operations but that he wanted to further consider the issue before presenting a resolution.

Acevedo said state law requires police officers to use every legal method to enforce laws and that he thinks the proposal to block officers from taking blood could run afoul of that requirement.

“It is my understanding that it hasn’t been placed on an agenda for action, but if it is placed, I believe it is a moot point,” Acevedo said. “We aren’t providing phlebotomy training for our officers.”

Clay Abbott, DWI resource prosecutor for the Texas District & County Attorneys Association, said several law enforcement agencies across the state have begun training officers to collect blood samples from drunken driving suspects. He said they include Dalworthington Gardens, in the Fort Worth area, and the Williamson County sheriff’s office, which has trained several corrections officers to do so.

“To find that a police officer is the only individual that is disqualified from gathering evidence from a criminal suspect is insane,” Abbott said. “In every other investigation, we expect and require officers to gather evidence from the suspects they arrest.”

Austin police in recent years have had the blood drawn of certain drunken driving suspects, including those involved in collisions that result in serious injuries or death.

Civil libertarians have questioned the legality of the practice and said that they think the procedures are too invasive and not necessary to build cases.

This year, leaders of the city’s two major hospital networks told Austin police they were concerned about collecting blood evidence of suspects in criminal investigations, but officials said Wednesday that they have since reached an agreement for the staff of University Medical Center Brackenridge to do it.

Debbie Russell, president of the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said she and others approached City Council members about several proposals relating to blood draws. They took the issue up with Spelman a couple of weeks ago.

“Officers aren’t medical professionals,” Russell said. “It opens the door to liability.”

Sgt. Wayne Vincent, president of the Austin Police Association, said he isn’t necessarily concerned about the proposal. However, he said the city should give the department full-time phlebotomists positions if council members vote to support the measure.

“If you are going to deny police officers from doing this, then give us the resources to make sure it gets done,” he said.

tplohetski@statesman.com; 445-3605

Originally published in the Austin American Statesman

http://www.statesman.com/search/content/news/stories/local/2009/10/15/1015blood.html

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Austin City Council to restrict APD blood draw policy

By: Reagan Hackleman

Austin City Council is reconsidering APD’s blood draw policy. Austin City Council will decide whether or not Austin police officers should be allowed to draw the blood of suspected drunk drivers, and one newly-elected council member is leading the charge.

“We’re putting both the police officer and the suspect in a dangerous situation,” Councilmember Bill Spelman said.

Spelman and his staff are drafting an ordinance that would prevent officers from taking blood.

“Drawing blood is like fixing a carburetor. If you do it all the time, you’re pretty good at. But, if you only do it once in a while, you’re not so good at it. What we really ought to be doing, is when we draw blood from people, is making sure that blood is drawn by someone who is licensed professional,” Spelman said.

Since starting blood draws, APD has used a phlebotomist at the Travis County Jail and hospital staff to collect the blood, but that didn’t last long.

News 8’s City Reporter Reagan Hackleman explains who the chief wants to train, and why that has some on the city council worried.

“The sheriff’s department got out of the blood draw business. Hospitals where refusing to draw blood and where did that leave us?” Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo said.

According to the chief, that left him looking at the option of training his officers, but he’s pretty sure that option is now off the table.

“I just had a meeting with some of the hospital officials and the sheriff. The sheriff has indicated a willingness to get back into the blood draw business,” Chief Acevedo said.

Acevedo said now there’s no reason for the council to move forward with the ordinance, but Spelman disagrees. He and the mayor still want to make sure officers won’t be drawing blood anytime soon.

Originally posted on News8Austin.com

http://www.news8austin.com/content/top_stories/default.asp?ArID=255607

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Pflugerville public servants to fight transparency provision

Public servants say state act violates their free speech rights.

By Suzannah Gonzales
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Thursday, October 15, 2009

Pflugerville council members voted unanimously Wednesday to join a lawsuit, yet to be filed, that will claim the Texas Open Meetings Act violates their free speech rights.

“Our lawsuit is not trying to throw out the entire Open Meetings Act. We’re only asking to declare unconstitutional the criminal provision that says that council members can’t talk to each other except at a meeting,” said Rod Ponton, who is co-counsel in the matter. “We do believe that the First Amendment gives public officials the right to speak to one another or the public.”

The potential suit would come after a similar one was dismissed last month by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott and others argued that the Alpine council members who challenged the act lacked legal standing because they were no longer in office. After the dismissal, public officials across the state, including in Pflugerville, contacted Ponton, who is Alpine’s city attorney, and expressed interest in joining a new suit, Ponton said.

The new suit is expected to be filed against the State of Texas and Abbott in the next month in federal court in the West Texas city of Pecos, said Ponton, who is representing the elected officials alongside Houston lawyer Dick DeGuerin.

In addition to Pflugerville Mayor Jeff Coleman and four council members — one council member was absent from Wednesday’s early morning vote — 15 elected officials from cities across the state, including Sugar Land, have joined the challenge as co-plaintiffs, Ponton said. He declined to identify all 15 officials. Ponton said cities, including Pflugerville, also will be named as co-plaintiffs in the matter, and he said he anticipates statewide organizations will also participate.

The act prohibits a quorum of members of a governmental body from deliberating in secret and is punishable by up to six months in jail and a $500 fine.

Elected officials “don’t want to go to jail. If they’re not sure (they’re violating the act), they’re just not going to say anything. And that’s what chills free speech,” Pflugerville City Attorney Floyd Akers said.

“I understand the other side. You don’t want corruption. But at some point, it gets a little onerous and you actually have the opposite effect. If you shut people up, you inhibit the dissemination of ideas, which is the purpose of the whole democratic process,” Akers said.

“Jail time is not the least restrictive means of promoting open government,” said Scott Houston, the director of legal services for the Texas Municipal League, which filed an amicus brief in the previous lawsuit in support of Alpine city officials but has not decided whether to support or join a new suit.

But Jim Hemphill, a member of the board of directors of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas and a lawyer who has represented the American-Statesman, said the Open Meetings Act and the First Amendment promote the public’s right to transparency in government.

“It’s kind of ironic that public officials are saying that the First Amendment requires government to be less transparent to the people,” Hemphill said. “It seems in some way it’s turning the First Amendment on its head.”

The earlier suit came after Alpine Council Member Katie Elms-Lawrence sent an e-mail in 2004 to three fellow council members about a pending water project. One of them wrote an e-mail response and sent it to the other three. That was problematic because four council members represent a quorum for that body. Then-District Attorney Frank Brown launched an investigation that ended with the indictments of Elms-Lawrence and Council Member Avinash Rangra in violating the Open Meetings Act.

Brown said he dismissed the cases when one of the other two council members recanted earlier testimony that he had received the e-mail.

Rangra and Anna Monclova, another council member, sued to challenge the law.

Though the 2004 incident will be mentioned and is the basis of the new challenge, Ponton said the new one will include incidents in which the plaintiffs have been threatened with prosecution for violating the act.

Akers cites this local example: Days before the May election, a supporter of Pflugerville council candidate Erica Anne Grignon filed a complaint with prosecutors alleging that her opponent, incumbent Victor Gonzales who later won, may have violated the act at a campaign event. A quorum of Pflugerville council members attended, and Gonzales spoke on various city-related topics, the complaint said.

The complaint is under review by the Travis County district attorney’s office.

The Alpine lawsuit caused a stir nationwide among media organizations and open government groups, said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, which filed an amicus brief in that suit in support of Brown and Abbott. She said a new suit likewise could cause alarm.

“Sometimes the audacity of public officials and their complete lack of understanding of what it means to be a public servant astonishes me” Dalglish said. “Quite honestly, the Texas open meetings statute does not seem to be onerous. It’s very mainstream.”

sgonzales@statesman.com; 445-3616

Originally posted in the Austin American Statesman.

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/2009/10/15/1015pflugerville.html