Welcome to Many People Are Saying. This is our weekly article where we post about the unique, weird, and scandalous things happening in Texas. Subscribing also helps support Current Revolt, so smash that subscribe button.
THIS WEEK:
Tarrant County GOP Has Signs Defaced With Swastika
Insanely Huge Flock Update
County Judge Faces Questions Over Disputed Independent Candidate
Tarrant County GOP Has Signs Defaced With Swastika
Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare’s signs were defaced with swastikas earlier this week in a trend that continues across areas in Texas
The signs were located directly in front of the Tarrant County GOP office and were defaced Wednesday night.
Just last week an unknown woman pulled up to a person’s home and stole their Tim O’Hare sign in the middle of the day:
Current Revolt reached out to Tarrant County GOP Chairman Tim Davis for comment:
“Democrats only have one trick: calling everyone and everything they don’t like racist or fascist. It’s more wore out than Joe Biden at 2 pm.”
- Tim Davis, Tarrant County GOP Chairman
Grapevine Flock Update
We could easily overload our Texas readers with all the insane Flock stories in a country that supposedly has a Fourth Amendment protecting against general warrants.
Instead, we only focus on Texas cities and get deep into the weeds and pull receipts. Let me be the one to tell you: when every city you look at is filled with half-truths, obfuscation, legal threats, and now mislabeled files being sent in place of real audit logs, you know the problem is far worse than anyone imagined.
Some cities are complying nicely with requests from citizens for information on their Flock programs (nicely meaning after a 4-5 digit quote and a complaint to the AG). Others are going to great lengths to keep the audit logs hidden, along with how these automated general-warrant tracking systems are actually being used.
Grapevine Says It Has No Way to Audit Its Flock Cameras. We Found 12,339 of Grapevine’s Searches in Other Cities’ Audits.
Grapevine has now responded to open records requests from at least three different requestors by stating the city has no way to audit the use of its police department’s Flock cameras.
Not sure which is the more absurd possibility: that they’re telling the truth, or that they’re lying. They make this claim despite records showing they paid for the audit tool.
Grapevine’s own police rulebook tells its officers “ALPR system audits should be conducted on a regular basis.” Keller, Colleyville, Forney and Pflugerville all exported the exact same logs and handed them over.
Keller’s own screenshot of the Flock page shows the Network Audit tab and the Event Log tab sitting right there on the menu bar. For some reason, Grapevine can’t find the button to comply with the law.
Here’s the part that is really the chef’s kiss. We can’t get Grapevine’s logs, but we have everybody else’s, and Grapevine PD is in all of them! Grapevine ran 10,558 searches through Colleyville’s cameras from March to August. It ran 891 through Forney’s in 31 days.
Current Revolt has asked Grapevine in writing to produce the export, or to do what the Texas Public Information Act requires when a city withholds something by sending the Attorney General a written reason.
If the government buying access to track and trace your personal movements without a warrant doesn’t bother you, perhaps some questionable financial decisions around these general warrant cameras will tickle your fancy?
Grapevine’s $138,800 Flock Contract Never Went to Council
Grapevine’s Flock program started on August 16, 2022, as a consent item. Nine cameras, $24,000, with $20,000 of it from the Texas Motor Vehicle Crime Prevention Authority (ABBOTT ABBOTT ABBOTT), which is the same insurance-fee slush fund that bought cameras in many other cities. It sailed through Grapevine 6 to 0 with zero discussion. The entire spoken record is the mayor saying “13 through 18 is consent” and “motion carries.”
Untold millions of searches against the comings and goings of Grapevine’s citizens, and not one of the brave public servants on the council asked a single question before they did it. Makes you wonder what else goes through unquestioned in this town.
Then, in November 2023, a police captain signed Flock’s order at $27,500 a year for 60 months and a total of $138,800. That order appears on no agenda, no budget slide, no minutes and no vote. We read all 29 of Grapevine’s 2023 council records and 664 pages of packets. It’s not in there.
The problem is that two months earlier, on September 5, 2023, that same council passed its budget ordinance, Section 6:
That the City Manager is authorized to approve expenditures up to $15,000. Any expenditure over the $15,000 limit requires the approval of the City Council.
Here is a fun picture with the receipts on both sides.
