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City Council Meeting Minutes April 7, 2020 <br />income. Suffice it to say, I am very familiar with the behavior of addicts. If <br />they get a citation for stealing one person's lawn mower, they will just go on to <br />the next. Nor do they steal from places they are likely to get caught, rather <br />than from those who are least likely to take recourse against them. How will <br />this ordinance affect those in our community who would rather not call the <br />cops when they are the victims? Where is the empathy for them? Supporters of <br />this ordinance argue that the purpose of this ordinance is to prevent people <br />from becoming victims of the justice system. But who's looking out for the <br />victims of these "low level" offenses. Voyeurism is a class C misdemeanor. <br />When a woman catches a "peeping Tom" watching her undress through her <br />bedroom window, how is she supposed to feel safe, knowing the perpetrator <br />may come back for something much more egregious? The word "only" in <br />Section 2 of the ordinance completely strips officers of their discretion, as they <br />may only make an arrest when the narrow set of qualifying circumstances are <br />met. (Comments were limited to three minutes, time expired) <br />Faylita Hicks: <br />"The city of San Marcos has a chance to protect the constitutional rights of its <br />community members by ensuring they will not be unduly arrested and <br />punished with imprisonment, before a court's official ruling, by enacting the <br />cite and release ordinance. The list of citation -eligible offenses was approved at <br />the state level 10 years ago. There has been more than enough time for the San <br />Marcos Police Department to make the much-needed changes to lower the <br />number of people being arrested for these offenses. The continued arrests for <br />these citation -eligible offenses have contributed, in part, to the historic <br />overcrowding of our county jail. This is why we must mandate their uniform <br />use of cite and release today. "More than half of the Texas Criminal Justice <br />Coalition's survey respondents reported an annual income of less than $10,000 <br />before being arrested, and 4 in 5 reported an income of less than $30,000. <br />Unnecessary jail stays exacerbate individuals' financial struggles, driving <br />women deeper into poverty." This stat was one of several in Texas Appleseed's <br />April 2019 report, How Texas Counties Could Save Millions of Dollars by <br />Safely Diverting People From Jail. The report notes just how financially <br />devastating unnecessary jail time can be for the individual, the city, and the <br />county. A police officer's job is not to determine the guilt of an individual. It is <br />not the city council's job to determine the guilt of an individual. Only the <br />judge can decide who is guilty. The opponents of the ordinance are more <br />concerned with immediate punishment --through the arrest of someone who has <br />been accused but NOT yet found guilty by a judge --than they are about our <br />constitutional right to be treated as innocent until proven guilty. Even the <br />City of San Marcos Page 12 <br />