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| @GregAbbott_TX shows Department of Public Safety officers protecting the Alamo in San Antonio from protest on June 11 |
Texas Gov Falsely Claims Guard Troops
Have Been Trained to Handle Civil Unrest
Capitol Inside
June 14, 2025
Governor Greg Abbott's deployment of 5,000 Texas National Guard members to No Kings protests around the state on Saturday appears to be an amateurish copycat move based on documents that show the troops have not been properly trained for civil disturbances and are offended by the assignment.
The Republican governor attempted on Friday night in a social media post to camouflage hide the National Guard officers' lack of training and preparation for the anti-Trump demonstrations in Texas cities where they've been sent for possible engagement with American citizens they took oaths to protect.
"Texas National Guard soldiers are prepared to maintain order and defend innocent Texans and property," Abbott said on X. "They are trained to respond swiftly to violence and unrest.
Texas will not tolerate lawlessness."
The Austin American-Statesman exposed the helter-skelter nature of the governor's actions on Saturday in an investigative piece that it based on internal memos that show how Texas military officials are frantically scrambling to train Guard members for a role that most have never played.
The Statesman revealed that 108 of 800 troops who were ordered to Austin, San Antonio and Houston earlier this week before the mass deployment had been trained for civil demonstrations. The newspaper reported that Abbott has deployed five times as many Guard troops to protests today than the number he ordered to demonstrations against racial injustice in the summer of 2020.
Abbott announced the deployment on the same day that President Donald Trump ordered 700 U.S. Marines to Los Angeles for protests that turned violent there. Abbott has found the uprisings to be a rich source for photo ops on social media. The governor posted several pictures on X on Thursday that showed more than 100 troops standing idly in front of the Alamo in downtown San Antonio during a protest there the night before.
But the turmoil that Abbott apparently anticipated failed to materialize in the Alamo City when the protest played out more like a street party complete with mariachi musicians, food and drink. The documents that the Statesman cited did not reveal the number of troops who the governor was sending to individual cities around the state.
The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal reported on Friday that Abbott had no plans to send the National Guard there for a protest planned there today. None of the cities where Guard troops have been deployed requested help from the governor or the state.
more to come ...
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