New details surface on staffing prior to Mansion fire

AUSTIN, Texas (KXAN) - In just one drive around Austin's capitol complex nowadays, you'll see dozens of Department of Public Safety troopers patrolling the area.

But, according to a memo sent on May 29th, that hasn't always been the case. In that memo, a DPS sergeant charged with protecting the Capitol,  warns his lieutenant that security is lacking.

"Troopers are being required to supplement several additional areas of responsibility," the sergeant wrote. It goes on to list Operation Border Star and the Governor's mansion detail as two of the additional responsibilities.

"I think that is simply one junior officer complaining to a superior, and we believe that the Capitol is absolutely safe right now," said Governor Perry's spokesman Robert Black in response to the memo. 

"We should reconsider our district's support of Operation Border Star," the officer wrote in the memo. "Not only do we not have the manpower to spare, many of the troopers we are sending to the border lack current training and recent experience in patrol procedures which is unsafe fore them and the public. By sending troopers to Operation Border Star, security is weakened at the Capitol."

Black said he's not buying that excuse. He says DPS has been unable to fill more than 100 vacancies since 2002 and sending a few troopers from the Capitol to the border is the not the reason the agency faces security problems now.

"Operation Border Star is a critical component in our efforts to fight border drug gangs, human traffickers and those individuals who want to come into this country and into to this state to do us harm," said Black. 

Black said the fire at the mansion and the other security lapses that have been discovered are just a couple of the reasons the state plans to overhaul the agency. 

 "We want to make sure that another tragedy like the one that happened at the Governor's mansion doesn't happen again," Black said.  "We want to make sure that the state is ready in a post 911 world to address any threat that we may have whether it be at the border or internally."

DPS spokesperson Tela Mange offered only this written statement in response to the memo. "We do not discuss security at the Capitol or any other buildings we are responsible for."