I first met Kim Ogg in the early 1990s. I knew her as a good person and was thrilled to have supported her as a Democrat in past elections. But last year when she started attacking County Judge Hidalgo using the same talking points as the MAGA Party, I knew that I would no longer be able to vote for her.
I understand that if she needs to charge Democratic elected officials, she needs to do her job. But there has to be more than smoke for her to do that. I will use a judge as an example. She charged and obtained an indictment, only to have the indictment dismissed days later.
Teare – Off the Kugg – Kim Ogg – Off the Kuff
So a county court at law judge, Darrell Jordan, was indicted in 2022. How did that dispute get started?
Back in 2020, a political consultant, media consultant named Wayne Dolcefino, who actually had been Kim Ogg’s campaign spokesperson back in 2016, was in Darrell Jordan’s court. I think it’s actually probably fair to say, because he had a hidden camera on him at the time in the courtroom, that he was interrupting the proceedings.
And Judge Jordan said, “you can sit here, but you can’t interrupt. If you if you keep interrupting, I’m going to hold you in contempt.” And I think the words from Dolcefino, which are captured on video, were something like, “do what you have to do.” By Jordan’s account, he said, “all right, I’m going to hold you in contempt, and you’re going to jail.”
And that was an incident that happened in 2020, but for whatever reason, it wasn’t until 2022 that around that time it was presented to a grand jury and Darrell Jordan was indicted for official suppression, for allegedly wrongfully jailing Wayne Dolcefino. And that case was dismissed just a few days after the indictments. Source
There is more on Kim Ogg and her attacks on other democrats here.
Ogg is a former Republican who made her name as the tough-on-crime leader of Crime Stoppers of Houston. She ran for district attorney in 2016 as a Democrat on a criminal justice reform platform. At the time, the county was fighting a major civil lawsuit over its misdemeanor bail system, which plaintiffs claimed violated the Fourteenth Amendment by jailing citizens simply for being poor. (A federal judge later agreed, ordering the county to reform its system.) On the campaign trail, Ogg said she supported reform. Once in office she backtracked, announcing her opposition to a legal settlement that effectively eliminated cash bail for most misdemeanors. Source
Kim Ogg has engaged in targeting Democratic Judges as soft on crime, when there is no evidence to suggest that. This source has much more on that. Below is a small part of the article.
Since winning another term, Ogg has become even more vocal in her criticism of judges’ decisions on pretrial release. She has called bail reform pushed by Democratic judges “a driving factor in the crime crisis gripping our community.” In September, Ogg released a report connecting misdemeanor bail reform to the higher murder rate; three previous reports from the independent, judicially appointed monitor for the bail reform settlement had found no relationship. The Houston Chronicle’s editorial board characterized Ogg’s findings as misleading: “By singling out bail reform as a root cause of violent crime,” it wrote, “Ogg is tailoring a conclusion to fit her thesis.”
If Kim Ogg wants to help the Republicans get back into power in Houston, then she should take off her costume of a Democrat and run as a Republican.
Rottinghaus said. “In a partisan environment, this could be an issue where perception outweighs reality. The perception of crime is politically as bad as actual rising crime.” Republicans see the issue as their best path to regaining power in Harris County. “There is a chance that in this very partisan, very polarized world, some of these crime issues might catch on,” Rottinghaus said.
Sean Teare – Off the Kuff
He is not Kim Ogg.
Teare’s CR Jan 17, 2024 $550,772
Teare’s Campaign Report – In July of this year he had twice as much money on hand as Ogg.
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Ogg’s campaign report
Jan 17, 2024 report $455,755
More on Teare
I was surprised as it seems that Kim Ogg also went after Teare. Teare was right, as the DA agreed to deferred adjudication in the case. I went to the Harris County District Clerk’s office to see what happened to the case.
From the Houston Chronicle;
Teare said currently the DA prosecutes in too many cases without taking a precautionary look at the evidence. He critiqued how Ogg runs things and said there is a high amount of turnover under Ogg and unfilled jobs.
Teare said he’d aim to improve dismissal rates and reduce acquittals in serious offenses.
In his campaign video, he aspired to promote mental health care and rehabilitation programs.
From Houston Public Media;
Teare, a 43-year-old Houston native and longtime leader of the DA’s vehicular crimes division, resigned in February and this week announced he is challenging Ogg in the Democratic primary in 2024. He referred to the DA’s office as “broken” and accused Ogg of being more driven by political interests than the pursuit of justice.
There have been instances in which prosecutors were forced to either pursue or drop cases because of the publicity they attracted or because of the people involved, according to Teare, who said he once was told to stop investigating a business that might have contributed to drunken driving because the owner of the business had donated to Ogg’s campaign.
“I left because the administration and the leadership at the DA’s office under the current administration is failing at the job,” Teare said Wednesday ahead of a campaign kickoff event. “The prosecutors that are doing the work day in and day out are completely disenfranchised. Morale is lower than I’ve ever seen at any DA’s office. The promises that we were all led to believe in 2016 were not being followed through.”