Travis County Commissioners Court
March 13, 2007
Citizens Communication
Due to technical difficulties some caption files may be incomplete.
...Next. This item gives residents an opportunity to address the Commissioners court on any matter not on the agenda for up to three minutes, and two citizens have signed in, mr. Hernandez, and rick luna.
>> morning.
>> good morning, Commissioners.
>> my name is mr. Hernandez, and I知 speaking to you as deputy director for district 7. Our director was committed to another meeting and could not be with you today. Lulac. However, we feel it is important that we bring to you a request a amidst the controversy that has, and for you to look into the powers of your office in placing a halt in sending youth from Travis County to tyc until this scandal is resolved and that is for the safety of our youth. We're asking -- we are also asking that you also look into the powers of your office in ensuring that complaints that arise within our own facilities at gardener bets regarding physical abuse or sexual abuse be taken seriously. And the reason we bring this to you, Commissioners, is because the constituents that are being violated in this situation are children of our community. These children have come from broken homes. These children have no advocates. Many of them are being raised by their grandmothers. Many are being raised by single-family moms. Many of them are being raised by foster parents. And they have no one to speak on their behalf, and they have become vulnerable, and because of all the bureaucracy that occurs, they are the ones that are behind bars and they are the ones that are being -- absorbing the physical abuse. We also need to remember that as elected officials you-all take a note to protect and defend the constitution of the united states and to even force all en, and therefore it is also important that when constituents come to your office with complaints of this nature, that they be thoroughly looked at, especially if they come from your constituentancy or your district. Once again, we have parents that have been persistent and we are concerned about those children that don't have those advocate parents that are persistent. Mr. Luna is a prime example that he pursued justice for his child. It wasn't until the dallas morning news broke the story, and it's very interesting that the Austin american-statesman didn't. And it's interesting that parents of anglo children are the ones that rose the level of scrutiny that broke the story. Yet the population at tyc is 55% hispanic and 48 african-american. So I ask you to please look into these issues very seriously because it's the children of our community that are suffering and they're human beings. Regardless of their criminal so. He was beat up at gardener bets the day he was going to jean miewr. I put a complaint there and I brought it to your attention many times and I know that the district attorney, ronnie earle, knew about it and nothing was ever done about it, and I知 still traumatized. Also my son has been traumatized because of all this stuff that's happened to him. And all I ask is for you-all to -- you know, to -- it's going on. It's going on right now that the kids being not abused at the gardener betts, and judge brings come, you know I brought this and you did -- you tried to do things to try to work with me, but when I brought it to the attention of the district attorney's office they kind of threw me -- did not pay attention to me, and now they said that they didn't know nothing about it. You know, four years later they didn't know nothing about it. Well, I have documents still from that -- from the time that I went and filed a complaint to the -- against judge jean muir. I filed a complaint with the juvenile justice department that was never done nothing about, and that's why I知 here. I知 here because the future of our children are being abused and it's time to put a stop there and we would like -- I would like to see the Commissioners court intervene for these children, you know, because they do need a spokesman for them, and that's why I知 here today. For citizens communication, whether you signed in or
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
Last Modified:
Wednesday, March 14, 2007 8:00 AM