Following the regular session of the 88th Texas Legislature, bills passed from the meeting will be enacted following September 1.
In turn, law enforcement agencies will be affected by the bills which will trickle down to local communities in one way or another.
For Levelland Police Chief and President of the Texas Police Chief Association Albert Garcia two pieces of legislature come to mind that were discussed during the regular session.
“These two pieces of legislature that have either gone through or vetoed can affect our communities badly which is House Bill 1819 and House Bill 276,” said Garcia.
HB 1819 focuses on curfew violations that will directly affect municipal governments and counties. Using the City of Levelland as an example who has developed an ordinance dealing with curfew violations and restricts juveniles from being out past a certain time during the weekends and weekdays, the passing of the bill allows no local government or law enforcement agency to enforce curfew violations for any person under the age of 18-years-old.
Currently, the City of Levelland is operating curfew violations under Article 7.500 Curfew and Night Regulations.
The article states that it is unlawful for any person who 16years-old or less of age to be, remain in or upon any public place or in or upon any establishment within the city between the hours of 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. of the following day, except that on Friday nights and Saturday nights the hours shall be from 12 a.m. to 6 a.m.
Exemptions include: - when the minor is accompanied by, and is in the actual presence of, his parent, legal guardian, or authorized adult supervisor; - when the minor is actually engaged in performing an errand or other legitimate business at the direction of a parent, legal guardian, or authorized adult sponsor, including travel to and from such location by a direct route; - when the minor is on the sidewalk no further from his home than the next door neighbor, when said neighbors do not object to such presence; - when the minor is directly engaged in employment activities such as, but not limited to, newspaper delivery; - when the minor is traveling in interstate commerce; - when the minor is involved in an emergency; - when the minor is attending an official school, religious, or other recreational activity supervised by adults and sponsored by the city, Levelland Independent School District, a civic organization, a church or another similar entity that takes responsibility for the minor, or going to or returning home from such an activity, without any detour or stop;
- when the minor is actually exercising those rights protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, such as the free exercise of religion, speech, or lawful assembly; - when the minor is married or had been married or had disabilities of minority removed in accordance with Chapter 31 of the Texas Family Code; or - when the minor is engaged in a permitted and authorized athletic or recreational event located on a city-owned park that is supervised by adults.
Before taking any enforcement action under this section, a police officer shall ask the apparent offender’s age and reason for being in the public place. The officer shall not issue a citation or make an arrest under this section unless the officer reasonably believes that an offense has occurred and that based on the information obtained by the officer and on other circumstances, no exceptions in Section 7.504 apply. A violation of this article would constitute a misdemeanor and be punishable by a fine in accordance with the general penalty provision found in Section 1.106 of this code.
A violation of Section 7.501 of the article by a minor constitutes conduct violating a penal ordinance of a political subdivision of this state which, if the minor was previously convicted of this offense on more than two occasions, shall constitute conduct indicating a need for supervision and Title 3 of the Texas Family Code shall apply, as amended, and the municipal court shall waive original jurisdiction over a minor who violates and shall refer the minor to juvenile court as required by Section 51.08 of the Texas Family Code.
For the City of Levelland, the ordinance was approved in May 2021. Now that the Texas Govenor Greg Abbott approved HB 1819, the ordinance has been made mute as of September 1, 2023.
“As the president for the TPCA, we discussed this in depth and we decided that this was going to be detrimental to municipal governments across the state,” explained Garcia. “I composed a letter to send to the governor and expressed our concerns about this and asked him to veto HB 1819.”
Regardless, following the approval of the bills this table governments across the state if they have a curfew violation ordinance and are going to have to do something in terms of potentially repealing that code of ordinance because it will not be valid at that point.
Sharing his fears, Garcia highlighted the border issues that have been prevalent with the number of narcotics, sex trafficking and kidnappings.
“I feel like in the state that we are in right now with border issues, that kind of stuff in some regards is related to our open border and some of the people that are targeted are our juvenile citizens,” said Garcia. “That’s exactly what I expressed in my letter to the governor and that it is our duty and our responsibility to ensure that our children and the future of Texas is safe.”
By allowing that age group to go out and, or by allowing them to not have a curfew could potentially allow more crimes, according to Garcia.
Sharing his understanding that most teenagers return home at decent hours and follow what they are supposed to be doing, but Garcia also reiterated that he is not naïve in there may be a handful who may not be adhering to those rules.
“I know there’s probably people out there that feel like most teenagers are doing exactly what they should be doing, but when we have incidences that we can reflect back to or refer back to that shows us that things can happen,” explained Garcia.
When the park ordinance was passed back in 2021, there was a specific incident where a police officer came in contact with a vehicle that had an adult male that was about to sexually assault a female teenager.
“If we were not to have that code of ordinance to give us probable cause to make that contact then sometimes it becomes difficult for us to do that,” said Garcia. “The way that the legal system works is all based on probable cause right, so we can when we can come in contact with the juvenile now because they’re out past curfew that’s our probable cause to make that contact and ask why they are out passed curfew and get them back home.”
With the passing of the bill, Garcia explained they won’t have that capability now.
“Because of that, it makes me feel like we’re going to have potentially either more juvenile crime or more crime involving juveniles as victims,” said Garcia.
The second piece of legislation was HB 267, which dealt with law enforcement accreditation but was ultimately vetoed by the governor.
Garcia explained that the TPCA was sponsoring and pushing heavily to have the bill passed it would positively impact law enforcement agencies. With the Levelland Police Department a few weeks away from achieving their accreditation, the process requires a group of police chiefs from across the state of Texas to come in and review the department.
Accreditation consists of 172 standard policy and procedures that were selected by police chiefs across the state of Texas. Those standard policies and procedures must be in the departments manual, and they have to address certain things because that’s the best practice for that particular policy.
“Any agency can come on board with a very minimal amount of policy and procedures of how they’re going to treat their citizens,” said Garcia. “Here in Levelland we want to make sure that we are providing the utmost customer service and the utmost police service for our citizens and to do that we have to make sure that we’re doing it bigger and better than the rest of the state.”
Currently, there’s over 2,800 agencies in the state of Texas and of those 2,800 agencies right now through the TPCA there’s roughly 190 that have been able to achieve this accreditation.
“For us, it’s going to be a pretty big deal to finally get that feather in our hat and say that we’ve gotten our accreditation now,” explained Garcia. “However, this bill was going to essentially mandate or force agencies across the state of Texas that had more than 20 officers to get into the accreditation program and hopefully achieve their accreditation by 2029.”
Garcia added that part of the legislation read that if any agency wanted to participate or possibly receive any type of grant funding through the governor’s office they would have had to be listed in that program.
“We felt a bit defeated because we didn’t get those things done that we felt like were very critical in making sure that we were doing the best job for Texas, law enforcement wise,” said Garcia.