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National Guard troops gather nearby as demonstrators rally at the Frank Crowley Courts Building as protests continue after the death of George Floyd on Monday, June 1, 2020, in Dallas.(Smiley N. Pool \/ Staff Photographer)<\/p><\/div>\n
By Catherine Marfin
\nThe Dallas Morning News<\/p>\n
Updated 11:10 a.m.:<\/b><\/i>\u00a0Revised to include comments from Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson and Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins.<\/i><\/p>\n
The Texas National Guard plans to send up to 1,000 troops to five cities to support local law enforcement and the Texas Department of Public Safety after the Nov. 3 election,\u00a0the San Antonio Express-News reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n The troops could be sent as early as this weekend, the outlet reported. Troops are being activated \u201cas we did previously to deter any civil disturbance at sites in various cities within Texas,\u201d Maj. Gen. James K. \u201cRed\u201d Brown, chief of staff for the guard\u2019s commander, told the Express-News.<\/p>\n Texas Guard spokesman Brandon Jones told the outlet that troops could be sent to Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio, but that he didn\u2019t know how many guardsmen would be sent to each place.<\/p>\n \u201cRight now we could go to 1,000 troops in support of civil disturbance operations,\u201d Jones told the Express-News. \u201cWe\u2019re going to guard buildings just like we did during the George Floyd protests earlier this year. We are not going anywhere near polling locations. That has not been requested.\u201d<\/p>\n He said he couldn\u2019t speculate whether the mission of the guard would change to include the protection of polling places.<\/p>\n \u201cWe never make any speculation associated with any possible mission,\u201d he told the outlet. \u201cThat\u2019s not what we do. We respond to requests from the governor.\u201d<\/p>\n Maj. Gen. Tracy Norris, the guard\u2019s commander, was asked in recent weeks to draft plans in the event of trouble after the election, according to the Express-News.<\/p>\n The outlet reported that the National Guard Bureau said that election commissions in other states have asked their governors to request guard help to staff polling locations during the election.<\/p>\n Tristan Hallman, a spokesman for Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson, said the mayor was not aware of the plans to deploy guardsmen in the city.<\/p>\n Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said the county hasn\u2019t been contacted by Gov. Greg Abbott about the possible deployment of troops, but that officials weren\u2019t expecting any trouble during or after the election.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re going to proceed as normal and declare a winner when all the votes are counted, and it\u2019s really as simple as that,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have no indication and no intelligence that this will be anything but a peaceful election.\u201d<\/p>\n National Guard members\u00a0assisted local authorities in Dallas in June<\/a>\u00a0during protests after the death of George Floyd, a handcuffed black man who died after a police officer knelt on his neck for several minutes.<\/p>\n The guard was also deployed\u00a0to help staff the North Texas Food Bank<\/a>\u00a0earlier this year.<\/p>\n Abbott previously requested support from state troopers in Dallas in June of 2019 to help combat a spike in violent crime. Two months later, two Texas DPS troopers\u00a0fatally shot an armed 27-year-old man 16 times after a traffic stop.<\/a><\/p>\n The support ended Sept. 1 of that year, and a grand jury declined to indict the two troopers.<\/p>\n