Quote:
Originally Posted by skullring
Wilco Sheriff's office webpage contains the line: "We are proud of our “tough on crime” reputation"
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Well, as a lifelong Austin native AND having lived in RR a couple of years as well most of you are right, hobbying, as long as you are white and aren't stupid is probably just as safe as in Travis County. If caught the punishment is always much worse. Their "tough on crime" often translates to "guilty until proven innocent" and even that isn't good enough because an exoneration makes the prosecution's win percentage somewhere south of 100% and that is just plain unacceptable. Some points of info:
- The Wilco sheriff's department found a couple of KKK members, long time force veterans, and fired them about 10 years ago. Those were just the ones they found.
- In the late '80s, the clean cut Hispanic IBM employee (white shirt and tie wearin', masters degree havin') who built and sold me the first PC I bought lived in RR. He told me he was stopped, frisked and had his car illegally searched regularly about once a month by RR PD or the Sherrif's dept.
- I witnessed minority elementary school children pulled over on their way home from school and harassed by several RR PD or Sheriff's dept on several occasions when I lived on Gattis School Rd.
- The prosecutor they promoted to judge was just on trial for not revealing exculpatory evidence in a murder trial where they sent the husband away for decades for killing his wife when he was actually innocent.
IMHO, they are not only "get tough" but "hang 'em high" and, "Oh well, if they ain't guilt of that they are definitely guilty of something, so its OK". Not only that there is a whole lot of UTR racism (the racist and sexist jokes were de rigueur and not only tolerated, but expected, but that was in the late '90s so perhaps it has changed some. I for one, even as an old well off white guy, prefer not to take any chances in a county like that.
