Rep. Roy delivers remarks on devastating impacts of Austin Democrats’ defunding of the police

Recently, after a roundtable with law enforcement hosted by the House GOP American Security Task Force, I gave the following remarks about the devastating impact that the radical movement to “defund the police” has had on Austin, Texas and other cities around the country.

Footage can be found at the link here. A rough transcript is below:

We're here in Austin, Texas, which is home to at least the three of us who are representing parts of Austin. I live outside of Austin towards Dripping Springs, Texas.  I love Austin.  Austin’s a great city.  Austin's a city that I mean, I'm proud of its history and legacy of what it is as a city, but Austin is in trouble because of a reckless Democrat City Council that is endangering its citizens. That's just the fact and that just the truth and we know that, and we see it happening every day.

My great, great grandfather was a Texas Ranger in Travis, Hays, and Blanco county. My grandfather was a chief of police of Sweetwater, Texas.  I worked at the US Attorney's office on Project Safe Neighborhoods rooting out drugs and gun crimes, partnering with local law enforcement, worked in the Attorney General's office, and had law enforcement there as the first assistant of the Attorney General working with them to root out crime across the state of Texas.  
 

It is so critical to a functioning and free society that we root out crime and right now, unfortunately, Democrats in Austin, Texas in the City Council, including Mayor Adler, and people across this country, in Washington, DC, are against law enforcement and making it easy for criminals to run ram shod over the people of Austin, Texas.

Right now, there is some little girl moving up I-35, right now as we speak, that is going to be put into the human/sex trafficking trade. That's happening right now as we sit here.

We have gangs right now that are organizing in Austin, Texas.  

We have another shooting just like we had on 6th street just a few weeks ago because law enforcement is hamstrung, unable to do what they need to do because they have to divert resources to fund, and have the resources for 911 calls, and to actually police the streets, and now gangs are in power.

Human trafficking units are unable to intercept that little girl before she gets sold into that trade.

Right now, we have some young American, young Texan, in Westlake, Austin, East Austin, North Austin who is going to die of an opioid overdose because of something like Xanax being lased with fentanyl- now that we have 8,500 pounds of fentanyl that has been intercepted at our border.  

But that’s not all the fentanyl that is coming in.  You talk to DPS, we now know that fentanyl is coming into Texas, into our communities, and you all in the media see this every day when you see the horror stories of our young people dying from opioid overdoses.

92,000 across this country, 92,000- that is a direct result of open borders, a direct result of undermining our law enforcement and police officers, a direct result of coddling criminals and not putting the resources necessary to actually root out crime in our streets.

It's enough. The American people are tired of it. The people of Texas are tired of it. The people of Austin are tired of it and we're here to stand with law enforcement and to have their back.

I also issued a statement about the task force roundtable which can be found here.

Footage of the entire press conference can be found here.