Gov. Abbott: 'We're going to defund' Texas cities that defund police

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Gov. Abbott: Austin should face consequences for defunding police

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on crime surging in cities that defunded police.

After signing a law that would prohibit cities within Texas to defund the police, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott told "The Faulkner Focus" on Tuesday that Austin should face consequences for its move to cripple local law enforcement. The governor retweeted a post from Kenneth Casaday, the president of the Austin Police Association, over the weekend that was critical of the response time for a shooting call early Sunday. 

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GREG ABBOTT: Well, the reason it's stronger is because, as you pointed out, I'm about to sign a law that will ensure that cities in the state of Texas will not be able to defund the police. First, the context: and that is that you pointed out, what's going on in Minneapolis, where it is both a tragedy and a disaster. What's going on for the residents of Minneapolis because of the defunded police and you've seen the same thing in Portland and Seattle and Chicago and New York, et cetera. 

Unfortunately, we had the same thing happen here in the state of Texas where the city of Austin defunded police … and because Austin defunded the police, we wanted to do two things in this session. 

One, we wanted to make sure that there were going to be consequences for the city of Austin. The second is we wanted to make sure that no other city in the state of Texas would defund police. 

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