Just two days after a Houston
police sergeant was fatally shot in the line of duty while responding to a domestic violence call, Chief Art Acevedo is once again challenging lawmakers to pass key legislation that would bar abusers from owning a firearm.
“I don’t want to hear about how much they support law enforcement,” Acevedo told reporters Monday morning outside the medical examiner’s office before
police escorted Sgt. Christopher Brewster’s body. “I don’t want to hear about how much they care about the sanctity of lives,” Acevedo said.
He said legislators have failed to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, which provides funding and grants for domestic abuse programs, due to pressure from the National Rifle Association, which “doesn’t like the fact that we want to take firearms out of the hands of boyfriends that abuse girlfriends.”
“And who killed our sergeant? A boyfriend abusing his girlfriend,” Acevedo said. “So you’re either here for women and children and our daughters and our sisters and our aunts or you’re here for the NRA.”
“Make up your minds,” he added.
Acevedo called out by name Sens. Mitch McConnell, Ted Cruz and John Cornyn;
the latter of which Acevedo jousted with last week on Twitter after a press conference about the Violence Against Women Act.