Abbott Could Build New Strike Team
with DPS Officers at Scene in Uvalde

Capitol Inside
July 1, 2022

Governor Greg Abbott has expanded the power of the state police once again with the creation of strike teams on the Rio Grande just five weeks after 14 Department of Public Safety officers bungled the response at a mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde where they waited for an hour for federal agents to travel to town to take the killer out.

"The Lone Star State has already taken unprecedented action to secure the border," Abbott asserted in a tweet on Friday. "Now, we're setting up more checkpoints, deploying strike teams, & adding more miles of concertina wire."

Abbott said the latest round of historic initiatives was necessary because President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris continue to "do NOTHING" that meets the Republican governor's approval in terms of stopping the flow of migrants and drugs into Texas from Mexico.

Abbott, however, hasn't revealed whether the DPS officers at the scene in Uvalde would be candidates for one of the new strike teams. That group included a Texas Ranger who arrived at Robb Elementary 56 minutes before a U.S. Border Patrol crew showed up, took charge and ended the siege at the school where a teenager gunman used an AK-15 assault rifle that he bought the week before on his 18th birthday to murder 19 children and two teachers.

The governor hailed the DPS members' heroics in Uvalde in the immediate aftermath of the massacre - saying at a press conference in Uvalde on the day after the killings that a swift and courageous response by law enforcement had saved lives. Abbott said that was a fact before admitting three days later that he'd had no clue a full 24 hours after the rampage what had actually transpired at the killing scene.

Abbott has made no attempt to acknowledge the truth about the DPS standing down to a local school district police chief in a stunning dereliction of duty and protocol. The governor appears to be rewarding the DPS instead with the implementation of the strike teams that appear to be a passive admission that the taxpayer-funded border program Operation Lone Star has been a failure.

The strike teams will be duplicating the work that Operation Lone Star was supposed to be doing for the past 15 months at a cost to the public that exceeds $5 billion. There's been no evidence of Operation Lone Star having a consequential effect beyond its value as a re-election campaign gimmick.

Abbott sought to take credit on Friday as well for hundreds of billions of dollars in trade last year through Laredo.

"The Port of Laredo serves as the #1 inland port along the U.S.-Mexico Border," Abbott said in a Twitter post. "In 2021, it generated $248.5B in total global trade. Texas has a top ranked economy & together we’ll ensure it stays that way."

Abbott didn't mention that the number could be down in 2022 as a result of a nine-day international bridge blockade that he orchestrated with the use of DPS inspections of major commercial trucks. The border economy could suffer additional damage if Abbott follows with the threat of the revival of truck inspections at checkpoints that he says the state is putting up.

more to come ...