Remember our post about disputed claims that pro-choice advocates brought jars of feces and urine to the Texas Capitol earlier this month to protest legislation that could effectively ban abortion throughout much of the state? Religious-right groups and their legislative allies have used those claims to smear the citizens who went to the Capitol to support women’s access to reproductive health care services.
Reporters were unable to find any Department of Public Safety troopers at the time who said they saw people bringing jars of excrement to the Capitol. Even so, DPS officials sent out a news release saying that troopers did discover such items, but that the people who brought them to the Capitol voluntarily discarded them.
Well, reporters sent the DPS requests under the Texas open records law, asking for documents and other materials that led to the DPS news release. A writer for the Houston Chronicle/San Antonio Express-News now reports that the DPS has asked the Texas Attorney General’s Office whether it has to comply with that request.
Hmmm…
Pics or it didn’t happen, DPS.
Possibly they know it wasn’t a pro-choice protester.
Possibly. Or possibly it just … shenanigans.
I have a friend who was detained and very nearly arrested for disturbing the peace because she was arguing with someone a little too loudly outside the capital building on the grounds during this event. Do we really believe someone tried to bring a jar of shit into the capital during a massive protest action and they were not arrested? It strains credulity. If they weren’t arrested, why not?
There are no pics, no proof, no evidence, because it did not happen.
I knew this story stank from the very beginning, and I said so at the time (loudly and repeatedly). As usual, though, people preferred a fragile excuse to be pissed off—or, if we tamp down the polite fiction to reveal the truth of the matter, a fragile excuse to justify why they were already pissed off—over the reality of the Texas Legislature padding the truth to justify bleeding out our civil liberties.
If this turns out to be a lie on the part of this law enforcement agency, heads need to roll. People who would lie like this are also the kind of people that would plant cocaine in an innocent person’s car to work out a persoonal vendetta. Someone needs to get to the bottom of this and then clean house.
More about #Crapgate!
As best I can recall, none of the DPS statements linked the alleged jars of urine or feces to either side of the protests. Certain people added assertions that they were being carried by pro-choicers, despite the lack of any evidence, even in the form of vague DPS statements.
DPS also, I think, tried to qualify the statements later by saying that the individual(s) carrying the jars were independent of either side of the protests. All that suggests is that DPS either knows more than it is telling us, or is trying to make this thing go away.
The most likely originating culprit is Sen. Dan Patrick who is an expert in bottling and selling shit.