Texas woman arrested for Facebook post about town water quality

(reclaimthenet.org)

159 points | by abawany an hour ago ago

42 comments

  • vjvjvjvjghv an hour ago

    I assume she will get a settlement, the city (the taxpayer) will pay for it and nothing else changes. There will be even less money for infrastructure repair and people will keep voting for the same people.

    • snazypaparazzi 10 minutes ago

      I think everything is consistent with the perspective Texas represents toward the united states. It's fine if Texas doesn't implement reforms and fails. (There are 49 other states and may the ones that invent or adopt the best practices survive.)

      • smt88 3 minutes ago

        What do you think “fails” means exactly? How does Texas fail in a way that doesn’t harm innocent people in both Texas and the rest of the country/world?

        Texas is larger (in both population and economy) than most countries in the world.

  • infinite_spin a few seconds ago

    I'm not a lawyer, but I think qualified immunity should not apply to constitutional violations. Giving an opt-out for those violations is antithetical to the very substance of our (US) constitution.

  • nkrisc 24 minutes ago

    Yikes, they’ll have to arrest most of the current federal administration if they ever set foot in Texas if that post meets the criteria for that particular law. That’s going to cause problems.

    • dpe82 19 minutes ago

      Oh don't worry, the enforcement is extremely selective.

    • kibwen 11 minutes ago

      Never heard of Ken Paxton, I suppose?

  • mvdtnz 14 minutes ago

    How does a town in the richest nation in the history of the planet not have the resources to get clear drinking water flowing through their taps?

    • beAbU 11 minutes ago

      Presumably because they are spending their money prosecuting people complaining about bad water.

      Money does not grow on trees, you know!

    • umvi 10 minutes ago

      Water is handled at the city level, not the federal level. If you have incompetent local leadership, this can happen. Incompetent local leaders can (and have!) bankrupted their cities.

      • azinman2 5 minutes ago

        Texas also is all about no/low taxes.

    • queenkjuul 3 minutes ago

      Cuz all that wealth belongs to about 14 people and everyone else gets police harassment and poison water

  • 6stringmerc an hour ago

    Not surprised. Tarrant County told the US Marshals my styrofoam cooler with vomit in it was a “bomb threat” and charged me with use of a DEADLY WEAPON. Honestly. If my public defender hadn’t colluded with the Prosecution it wouldn’t be on my record today.

    This is going to get a lot worse before it gets better in the US. I’m a nonviolent cripple. Meanwhile a pardoned Jan 6 rioter just told a City Counsel “they should be strung up” and isn’t even being charged. Totally depends what team you’re on right now.

    • vjvjvjvjghv 43 minutes ago

      "Meanwhile a pardoned Jan 6 rioter just told a City Counsel “they should be strung up” and isn’t even being charged."

      A great candidate to get some money from the lawfare fund.

  • SilverElfin 43 minutes ago

    The craziest part is the police defending this action as a “cut and dry” case. Meanwhile the lawsuit this woman just filed will hurt taxpayers and not the corrupt city officials and police that caused this. We need to ban all forms of immunity - none for cops, politicians, or judges. They need to be personally liable for their actions.

    • thot_experiment 37 minutes ago

      It's absolutely not the slightest bit crazy if you've paid attention to how cops behave at any point in the last history of the country. 100% agree about personal responsibility. You must understand that when the cops says that oversight means they can't do their job, that means they view their job as bullying, harassing and killing citizens, so yea, we should put a stop to that. 1312

      • ggoo 22 minutes ago

        > It's absolutely not the slightest bit crazy

        Imo, speaking like this normalizes their behavior - it was crazy then and it's crazy now.

      • Bender 20 minutes ago

        I will not put the blame on the bobbies, that's too convenient. Someone had to order them to do this. That's who needs to be permanently ousted from all levels of government and their voting rights rescinded.

        • abofh 15 minutes ago

          Nobody has to order people to do anything if it's in their self interest. Yes corruption flows downhill, but until they flip, just following orders isn't a defense.

        • queenkjuul 13 minutes ago

          Lmao no this is just American police chiefs doing what they love to do, guarantee this whole thing starts and ends in that PD

      • queenkjuul 15 minutes ago

        [redacted] all police but don't pretend it isn't crazy. Not every country is like this.

    • Bilal_io 39 minutes ago

      I hear you, but there has to be some balance between full immunity and no immunity at all. The one thing that comes to mind is rich and powerful people, because they have unlimited resources to sue and ruin the lives of cops, judges and politicians, which would lead to these officials avoiding to hold rich and powerful individuals accountable even when they have committed crimes.

      • ben_w 36 minutes ago

        I'm not a lawyer, but what you're describing sounds to me like an example of strategic lawsuits against public participation, just where the targeted "public" isn't a member of the general public but a public servant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_publ...

      • jghn 7 minutes ago

        These lawsuits need to be charged against the police pension funds, not the city coffers

      • mcdonje 25 minutes ago

        "would"? There is currently a disparity in how rich and poor people are policed.

        I get the point that there should be some limited immunity so they can do their jobs. Debatable, but worth the debate.

        The argument about the repercussions of eliminating immunity is logical. It just seems like one of those things where there are multiple factors contributing to undesirable outcomes, and that makes it necessary to talk to experts.

      • thot_experiment 33 minutes ago

        You're so close! Instead of patching the issue maybe let's solve the root problem of spiky power distribution among humans. We don't need to make sure cops have immunity to prosecute powerful people. We need to not have powerful people.

        (though realistically speaking yes there's probably some level of procedural immunity that probably makes sense, similarly with business bankruptcies not ruining the people who start the business)

        • Ar-Curunir 25 minutes ago

          I agree with you, but most people aren’t ready to engage with basic anarchist arguments

        • p1esk 19 minutes ago

          We need to not have powerful people

          What does this even mean?

          • queenkjuul 11 minutes ago

            Make currently powerful people less powerful and currently powerless people more powerful.

            C'mon, HN users forgot how to think? Forgot to ask Claude?

    • rightbyte 40 minutes ago

      Exactly which types of politicians, judges etc would be targeted by liability do you think? The unrighteous politicians? The judges in favour of those in power?

    • nozzlegear 36 minutes ago

      In my experience (I sued my town for violating my first amendment rights), the city will have insurance that will cover any damages or settlement they have to pay. Their premiums will likely go up, but the impact to taxpayers is probably minimal.

    • thinkingtoilet 36 minutes ago

      Just more actions from free speech loving Republicans. Exactly like that guy in Tennessee who got $800k.

    • casey2 33 minutes ago

      Even making them pay their own lawsuit insurance premiums would be enough to stop 90% of abuse.

      No change will happen until cities stop using police revenue for discretionary spending.

  • nadermx an hour ago

    Imagine the town of flynt getting arrested for having your government fail you.

  • pstuart 13 minutes ago

    This is a textbook free speech issue, versus not being able to post your conspiracy theory on some web site which has nothing to do with free speech.

  • markoman 18 minutes ago

    This type of treatment of citizenry by the State of Texas, and its various (and especially red) localities should be all one needs to see of where conservatives (and Christian Naitonalism) will take our country in the future -- should they get their way. Republicans hope to enable just such a future by scaring Americans with made-up visions of transsexuals 'grooming' their children, yet they cleverly hide what awaits behind the curtain. The is the same curtain that hides why Israel is supposed to be so very, very important to the U.S. but not so much that we make them state #51. This is the magical (read: Biblical) rationale that the U.S. makes excuses for Israel's attack on its own USS Liberty in 1967.

    Saying nothing of the future of abortion & contraception, U.S. conservatives base their worldview on sexuality & reproduction and seek to burden it with fixtures that we have already spent hundreds of year to free ourselves from. At the same time, they take their eye off the ball of keeping our country competitive in the world. How embarrassing it is now to have the Chinese president suggest that the U.S. is in decline and that it shouldn't get caught in a Thucydides Trap.

    Yet, that is where Trump has put us indeed.

  • bfkwlfkjf an hour ago

    Land of the free

    • nozzlegear 39 minutes ago

      This is newsworthy because it's a clear and flagrant violation of her rights.

      Source: I was threatened with a lawsuit by my own town for criticizing them online, but the ACLU helped me counter sue and win a settlement for violating my first amendment rights.

      • poly2it 32 minutes ago

        Was the comment you are replying to edited?

    • vjvjvjvjghv 44 minutes ago

      I assume you mean "Land of the fee"

    • 6stringmerc an hour ago

      World Cup Tourists about to get some “civic lessons” if they buy that too much, mmmhmmm.