Harold Hurtt still doesn't get it

Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt is looking for another job. Apparently, he's a finalist for the top job in San Francisco, and I hope he gets the job. After all, the sooner this moron is gone, the better off Houston will be--and his politicizing of law enforcement should play very well out with the loony lefties.

Less than three months ago, 27-year HPD officer Richard Alter was shot in the face during a drug raid. The man who shot him was an illegal immigrant. Officer Rodney Johnson was killed in 2006 during a routine traffic stop by an illegal immigrant.

Both men had been in HPD custody more than once and their immigration status was never checked. That was part of the Sanctuary City Policy, which stated the City of Houston would not cooperate with federal immigration authorites when they tried to deport illegals and police officers would not check the immigration status of anyone they arrested.

The city has since disavowed the Sanctuary City Policy, but it's unclear at best if HPD is actively working with the feds. After all, their chief has already claimed that anyone arrested for a Class B misdemeanor or higher gets their citizenship checked (the Houston Police Officers' Union refuted that) and told the U.S. Congress that he didn't want to support federal efforts to deport illegals because it would "hurt" the HPD in the Hispanic community.

Now, in spite of the city's (alleged) rejection of sanctuary city status, in spite of one of his officers in a box and another disabled, Hurtt's still more interested protecting criminals and those here illegally than doing his job. He was backing Washington Wednesday, whining about an immigration program known as 287(g) (and, by the way, a program the HPD is taking part in). 287(g) allows participating agencies to access federal immigration databases and arrest an illegal immigrant immediately.

“Immigration enforcement by local police is counterproductive to community policing efforts. It undermines the trust and cooperation of immigrant communities, could lead to charges of racial profiling, and increases our response time to urgent calls for service,” Hurtt said.

So let me get this straight: Hurtt would rather ignore a major issue that is leading to a large proportion of crimes, violent and otherwise, that his officers have to respond to instead of facing it down? Just so he doesn't have to listen to false allegations of racial profiling?

Hurtt's position on 287(g) is not only gutless, it's brainless. It's a fact--not an unfortunate coincidence--that most drug dealers or smugglers in this city are illegal. MS-13, the deadly Latin American gang, consists almost entirely of illegals. A great deal of the violence they inflict is on other members of Houston's Hispanic community, which is too scared to do anything to stop them. With 287(g), HPD officers could identify and act against illegal immigrants--thereby upholding the laws of the United States and (in some cases) remove bad people from the streets.

Not if Hurtt has his way. He's supporting the use of 287(g)in Houston jails--that is, after something bad has happened--and that's under durress. He showed his plain disdain for the entire program when he tossed responsibility for Houston's involvement in the program in the lap of Mayor Bill White.

“The mayor, he was the point man on this. It was his idea, and, of course, he consulted with members of the department,” Hurtt said.

If you're a boss, you would probably be disturbed if you hired an employee and said employee 1) Had a problem in his area of responsibility; 2) Did nothing about dealing with the problem and 3) Complained that you're messing up his plans that are obviously working when you told him to clean up his mess.

The boss, in this case, would be Bill White. The employee would be Harold Hurtt. White should can Hurtt for his refusal to not only do his job and fight crime, but for taking appropriate steps to protect the men and women under his command.

But White won't; he agrees with Hurtt's stance on 287(g) and his support of the Sanctuary City policy, though he can't say so publicly. Otherwise, he'd be roadkill when he runs for the Senate in 2010 (which he will be anyway). That's an issue against White; the bigger matter is that Hurtt refuses to do what's best for his officers or this city.

Note that I said this city, not his city. Harold Hurtt's family has never moved here and he flies back and forth to Phoenix frequently. He has done a miserable job as chief here and has no emotional attachment to make him try harder. He is also far from representative of the people or politics of this city. He'd be a much better fit in...say, San Francisco.

So the sooner he leaves, the better. What a loser.