Houston Police Chief: "We Won't Tolerate What We Saw In Charlottesville"

HOUSTON, TX — Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo said Friday afternoon that his department will have no tolerance for destruction of property or statues at any time, or the violent attacking and inflicting physical pain, especially this weekend as a large Black Lives Matter rally is planned and counter protesters are expected to arrive.

At a press conference Friday afternoon, Acevedo said the police department supports people having the lawful exercising of their First Amendment rights, regardless of their personal feelings.

Black Lives Matter is hosting a rally Saturday at Sam Houston Park to send a message to the Houston City Council that they want the “Spirit of Confederacy” monument removed as a good starting point to eradicate Confederate statues and symbols throughout the city. Saturday’s rally starts at 3 p.m.

Acevedo said the department will be on site for security and ensure the lawfulness of the rally, but also said he expects a large contingency of counter protesters, and he said this will not escalate into a situation similar to the one last weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Last weekend a large group of white nationalists showed up at the University of Virginia in support of keeping a statue of Robert E. Lee, while counter protesters showed up, and things got bloody and deadly.

“I will just say that as long as I’m the police chief in Houston, Texas, we will not tolerate criminal misconduct,” Acevedo said. “We won’t tolerate what we saw in Charlottesville where people getting beat up. We will not stand idly by watching anyone deface, destroy public property, private property, and/or attack and physically injure other individuals.”

Acevedo said he doesn’t anticipate any problems as his department has continued training a few years leading up to last February's Super Bowl. He added that in cases like Charlottesville and other places that have violent clashes, that most off the so-called trouble makers are from out of town, and that the organizers and hometown residents are rarely a problem.

The chief continued to say the police won’t tolerate destruction of statues in any manner.

“We don’t really have any care to whether it’s a statue of a Confederate, a Confederate icon, or a statue of a Union general, we don’t care whether it’s Columbus, whether it’s Robert E. Lee, whether it’s Sam Houston, or it’s Ulysses S. Grant, whether it’s George Washington, we will not tolerate anyone defacing or trying to damage or trying to remove a statue from a public or private place unless they are following a lawful process.”

Photo by Eric Gay/AP