Texas Governor Greg Abbott just announced on his Twitter feed that he will no longer allow business owners to be put in jail for violating issued orders relating to the COVID-19 shutdown. This includes local orders and he makes it retroactive to April 2nd.
Here is the Tweet!
Throwing Texans in jail whose biz’s shut down through no fault of their own is wrong.
I am eliminating jail for violating an order, retroactive to April 2, superseding local orders.
Criminals shouldn’t be released to prevent COVID-19 just to put business owners in their place.
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) May 7, 2020
This is great news but you wonder how it even went this far? We reported yesterday how Gabrielle Ellison (owner of Big Daddy Zanes) and Shelley Luther (owner of Salon a la Mode) were both subject to over zealous police and judges. Shelley is actually in jail right now!
The bad part of Governor Abbott’s order is apparently Shelley’s release is still at the mercy of the judge who threw her in jail. How can it be right to put business owners in jail when the government is letting criminals go free because of the fears of them getting COVID! This is nuts!
RF
Featured image of Greg Abbott via public domain LBJ Library photo by Jay Godwin
