Man Shoots 8 Year Old, Posts Bail, Then Steals $500k in City Property
More fun with bail reform.
I don’t think this episode of bail reform saved taxpayers any money.
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- A Houston man was sentenced to 45 years in prison for shooting an 8-year-old boy during a fight in the Third Ward in 2019.
Richard Spiller, 31, also stole catalytic converters from City of Houston vehicles while he was out on bond for the shooting, the district attorney's office said.
So this gentleman apparently shot an 8-year old child over a literal playground argument. Then, because of course he did, he qualified for Republican’s new and improved bail program.
What did he do while out on bail? Write a book? Take the bar exam to represent himself?
Prosecutors presented evidence that Spiller worked with three other people to steal catalytic converters from city vehicles while he was out on bond, costing the city at least $500,000.
Officials said he also had a previous conviction for dog fighting.
Wow, he was an animal lover too. Based?
This happened under our new and improved bail system, which Greg Abbott said puts Texans first.

Bail reform is the ultimate game of political hot potato. Both sides claim that bail bonds are racist when they want to pander to certain folks. Both sides also claim the bail bond system is broken when a criminal gets out and kills a bunch of people.
2019 started a big push for this latest “bail reform” that existed exclusively in the leftist media. These type of astroturfed, woke special interest grifts typically all play out a similar way.
First, a mouthpiece for the state’s elite (like the Tribune) create a narrative that it’s very sad that people can’t get out of jail, and we need to change that but also promise to keep bad guys locked.


In case you were too dumb to understand, they ran the same ‘poor people sad’ narrative again the next day, this time including a sad photo just in case you missed the point that the situation is very sad.


This sets the stage for the Ukraine-flag-profile-pic type of people to come in and bedazzle you with rhetoric in op-eds about how it’s actually very smart to do something that’s risky or harmful, and that disagreeing means you sadistically enjoy seeing the sad photos of people in jail.


Look at the example this Mr. Levin uses:
Is public safety for sale in Texas? Consider the case of Jason Wayne Carlile. He is a convicted Texas sex offender who in November 2018 was arrested on a new charge of raping a 14-year-old boy. Previously, he had been convicted of exposing himself to a two-year old boy and “purchasing” a 15 year-old girl for $3,000 from his mother. Carlile was initially set to remain in jail pending his trial because he could not afford the $150,000 bail, but his mother won a Texas lottery payout of $15.24 million, which enabled her to bail him out.
Carlile was no less dangerous the day after his mother won the lottery, but the Texas Constitution prohibits denial of bail in cases like his. And while someone like Carlile must be released, many lower-risk defendants are languishing in jail on low-level, nonviolent charges simply because they cannot afford bail.
This is the most cartoonish example imaginable being used as justification for changing public policy.
They didn’t do anything on so-called bail reform in 2019, but Republicans caved in 2021. In their mind, this works for them because as I previously mentioned, they can play both sides with this issue of “bail reform” or “criminal justice reform,” for an entire year after they pass a new bail reform law.
But the pronoun people will still claim it’s racist.
So this is where we are at.
Pronoun people demand something.

Republicans not only deliver.


They made it the number 1 most important issue in Texas!
Republicans delivered on the first and last items on Abbott’s list, which were just fringe special interest deals.
Incumbents everywhere spammed these agenda item lists from Abbott everywhere, bookending issues voters actually cared about.
What even is this?
He shot an 8 year old and was into dog fighting and then he’s out on bail?
This isn’t a failure of the criminal justice system. It’s a failure of the education system.
Instead of sending kids to failing schools, which eventually turns into dog fighting, we need to have dogs be the teachers in schools.
You can call this plan racist, but it’s definitely taxpayer friendly.
Dogs are kind of like slaves in that you don’t have to pay them.
Also, the “risk assessment tool” is a computer program that runs on an algorithm. It’s expensive and is responsible for our triple homicide rate (in addition to Heidi Unger, that is). Getting out of jail on a promise ensures freedom with just a few snips on an ankle strap. Truly we have idiots running our state.
This is sickening. Abbott has said in the past that we need more jails and more Texas prisons to handle the spike in crime. Poor or not, the bail system works. It’s made to ensure people show up for court so the ends of Justice may be met.