Doug Griffith - President, HPOU Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Seven, twenty two is our time during Houston's morning news,
so Mayor John Whitmyer and his press conference basically said
that the Houston Police Department is not assisting with ICE
or any of their deportation efforts. Doug Griffiths joins, US
President of the Houston Police Officers Union. I got the impression, Doug,
that you weren't real pleased with what the Mayor had

(00:21):
to say.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Well, what he said really didn't didn't come out the
way I think he meant it. We are going to
help any agency that needs our assistance, but the FEDS
are going after violent offenders, mainly those with open warrants
right now. We are already doing that in the City
of Fuse, and we've been doing that for years. We

(00:43):
go after violent offenders now the ICE detainer, we would
even know they had one. When we make an arrest
they find that out in the Harris County jail. Our
system doesn't afford us the opportunity to see who's legal,
who's not legal, or if they have ICE detainer on him.
We do know there's over three hundred thousand people in
Harris County with ICE detainers, but we aren't going after him.

(01:07):
We don't have the manpower for that. We don't have
the manpower to go serve all the warrants that we
have in Harris County because it's astronomical the numbers, and
we are almost two thousand uncers down at this point
in the game.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
Yeah, I got the feeling, honestly, that the mayor was trying.
The other thing is the mayor's trying to thread a needle, right,
He's trying to thread a political needle there. He's got
progressive members on city council who don't want him to
cooperate with Ice under any circumstances. He has constituents in
the county that are more conservative that do want him
to cooperate. He seems to be trying to find that

(01:43):
middle ground between, you know, not pissing off people on
the left and not pissing off people on the right.
Would you agree with.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
That, I would say that, Yeah, he listened. He's in
a political situation. We have a predominantly Hispanic community out there,
and we aren't going looking for people's papers, We're not
asking for people's status on immigration. We really don't care.
We don't have the manpower to go and do that.
That's not our job anyway. That is the federal government's job,

(02:16):
and they are doing it to the best of their ability.
And I believe that moving forward, if an offstreach help,
we're going to help them period. That's what we do.
But as far as the immigration status, we're not looking
for that. Nobody's trying to round up illegal immigrants and
send them back. That's just not what we do. As

(02:37):
a local law enforcement agency. Our job is to go
out and chase bad guys. That's what we're doing. We're
going to continue to do that, and if they happen
to be illegal and the Feds want to send them back,
that's their priority to do.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
So. Okay, one thing you did you said does surprise
me a little bit from a practical standpoint. You said,
you have no way when somebody's booked in the Harris
County jail, you have no way of knowing if there's
an ICE detainer on them or not. Isn't that's something
that would be very helpful to you to be able
to know that information. You could just call lice and
have them come pick these people up.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
Well, again, years ago, we used to have I want
to say it was under Clint we had check boxes,
and if they were ilegal, we had to check it
and Harris County would guilt it from there. That has
since changed over the years and we no longer do that. Again,
that's something that they do in the Harris County jail,
and I'm not exactly sure how they run their SNeW

(03:31):
but from a standpoint from our local enforcement officers, we
wouldn't see that, okay, and we just take them in
and book them for whatever we have, what charges we
have on them.

Speaker 1 (03:40):
I got you. So that's a question I would need
to ask the Harris County Sheriff's Department or maybe Judge
Lena Hildago as to why they don't do that, right, Yes, there, okay,
fair enough, Doug. Thanks. By the way, one more question
for you here, and that is I get the impression
that there are a lot of people who are scared.
Now you said we have over three hundred thousand people

(04:02):
in Harris County that are probably here illegally. That would
certainly explain why we have people who are not showing
up at farmers Market and and and a noticeable difference
in the amount of people who are in certain areas
where we used to see people all the time. Do
you get the impression there are a lot of people
who are afraid at this point of what's going on.

Speaker 2 (04:22):
All right, yes, sir, and there's really need. Even the
tough administration. They're not going around just browning up people
that are very lately. What they're doing, they're going to
after bottle offenders and those are people with warrants, Those
are people that have army based addicted and are in prison.
Those are people that are run for the reasons with

(04:45):
thee on the offenses on their record. Okay, that's the
only ones at this point that they are.

Speaker 1 (04:49):
Going after exactly so the rest of the rest of
the people who are here, regardless of immigration stats, no
need to be afraid. Thank you, sir, appreciated. Doug Griffith,
president of the Houston Police Officers Union. It's seven to
twenty seve it was