Tracy Murphree is the Worst

Recently elected Denton County Sheriff Tracy Murphree took to Facebook to do a little fear-mongering Monday night in a disturbing, but not exactly surprising manner following a bombing in Manchester that left 22 people dead and more than 50 injured.

Don't get me wrong, I understand. His city of residence, Sanger, is a thriving commercial hotbed. A hotbed that drives the economies of both the State of Texas and the nation at large. It is sure to be a prime target when the inevitable terror attacks begin to occur stateside.

It's important that the citizens Murphree swore to protect with his life understand that Papa Murphree is there for them. Even if being there for them means politicizing a still-developing tragedy that involved the loss of more than one child’s life.

Indeed, this man has convinced himself that Jihadists will arrive at our doorstep and there is nothing we can do to stop them, all because he can no longer publicly say the N-word. This hardly comes as a surprise, considering the inflammatory and utterly ignorant comments he made regarding transgender rights during his campaign for Sheriff, a race he clearly won.

This brand of mischaracterization and hate-peddling is the last bastion of American Conservatism. They know they're losing, they know we hate them almost as much as they hate minorities, poor people, women, and the LGBTQ+ community and they know all they can do now is stir up fear in the hearts of what's left of their followers, respected only by the uncle at dinner who, after two Bud Lights, launches into a diatribe about race realism. People like that don't deserve our respect, and they certainly don't deserve our niceties. At this point, they're nothing more than sad, insecure, and fearful propagandists that would sooner piss themselves than do anything to stop a terror attack. 

In the 2016 general elections, Murphree earned 191,691 votes in Denton County. This shouldn't come as a surprise since 63% of voters (123,346 people) who voted straight ticket, voted Republican. 

It has become exceedingly obvious that our sheriff is unfit to lead a little league team, much less a police force with a rapidly expanding scope of enforcement. What can you do about this? Well, since the majority of you who vote choose to vote for him just last year, he will remain in place until 2020. 

If you can't wait until then, according to Local Government Code Title 3, Subtitle B, Chapter 87, someone who has lived in Texas for more than six months can write a petition addressed to a district judge to consider. That judge can issue an order for a citation to be served to the petitioned official. However, that judge can also deny the citation order.

Oh, and there isn't an appeal process. If the judge does accept the petition, the petitioned official can only be removed by a jury trial. Guess who can appeal jury trials? You guessed it - district judges. 

 Header image design by Sara Button