Paper: Houston Chronicle
Date: SUN 09/19/2004
Section: B
Page: 3
Edition: 4 STAR
 

Town hall urges more police accountability / Criminal justice reform proponents also criticize some of the state's drug sentence mandates

By ALLAN TURNER
Staff

Charging that law enforcement agencies "circle the wagons" when accused of police brutality, Houston lawyer J. Michael Solar Saturday called on attendees at a criminal justice reform town hall meeting to "get out of our seats and into the street."

"Officers in Houston, Texas, have a long history of shooting people and going on with their lives with absolute impunity," Solar said, urging his audience to take their concerns to church and government leaders.

Solar, who last year obtained a $350,000 out-of-court settlement from the city of Baytown for the survivors of Luis Alfonso Torres, who died in Baytown police custody, led a roster of speakers that included state Sen. Rodney Ellis, Precinct 6 Constable Victor Trevino and civil rights attorney Randall Kallinen.

About 50 people attended the session at the Sociedad Mutualista Obrera Mexicana hall sponsored by the League of United Latin American Citizens, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and American Civil Liberties Union.

Harris County prosecutors, Solar suggested, were not aggressive in seeking indictments of four Baytown officers involved in the Torres case. "There are prosecutions," he said, "and there are prosecutions."

Torres died early Jan. 20, 2002, after police, finding the recently hospitalized man wandering the streets, wrestled him to the ground and incapacitated him with pepper spray. An autopsy revealed he died of "asphyxia with blunt impact trauma." A grand jury refused to indict the Baytown officers; the U.S. Justice Department also declined to pursue the case.

Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal could not be reached for comment Saturday.

Solar said the Torres and similar cases create a "corrosive effect" in the minority community.

"There's a loss of trust, a loss of faith in the system," he said. "There's an ambivalence. When you have a problem, do you call for help and risk becoming a victim?"

Houston ACLU president Kallinen said police officers are not adequately held accountable. Through a police union agreement with the city, he noted, officers involved in fatal incidents cannot be questioned until 48 hours after being contacted in writing.

The police union lawyer, however, may be involved in the case immediately - including gaining early access to the death scene. "Police should have the benefits of due process," Kallinen said, "but they have super-duper due process . . . "

"What happens when there are bad elements in law enforcement? They aren't disciplined. They stay in law enforcement. What we need in this city is for citizens to be able to investigate police misconduct."

Ellis, noting the Texas prison population is greater than that of many nations, said that "locking people up and throwing away the key is not making us safe."

Texas' incarceration rate is 51 percent above the national average, a LULAC study shows.

While conceding that "most people in jail should be in jail," Ellis argued that harsh measures may not achieve their desired goal. Instead, he said, "We should invest more money on the front end. It's OK to be tough on crime in Texas, but we could make the job easier by providing more child care, by taking measures to make sure people don't end up in crime."

Speakers criticized anti-drug measures that jail offenders rather than enroll them in treatment. Only 18 percent of Texans needing substance abuse treatment receive help and nearly half of the state's 15,000 inmates are jailed for offenses involving less than 1 gram of drugs, they said.

Kallinen said those incarcerated for drug offenses later are ineligible for government student loans.

"If you get busted for one joint of marijuana, you don't get a college education and you stay poor," he said. "This is the new discrimination through the criminal justice system."