City Council interrogates APD, city staff about DPS partnership

More than three weeks after Austin Mayor Kirk Watson announced a new partnership between the Austin Police Department and the Texas Department of Public Safety, City Council members had a chance to ask APD leadership and city staff about the recent deployment of state troopers. 

District 2 Council Member Vanessa Fuentes echoed her colleagues’ questions about the partnership – including the number of DPS officers patrolling Austin and the demographics of their arrestees – as well as frustration about a lack of answers to some of those questions during a work session briefing on Tuesday. APD Chief Joseph Chacon said he had requested more information from DPS. 

“Us receiving just half of the picture here really puts us in a challenging position,” Fuentes said.

We just wrapped up a briefing on the partnership between DPS Troopers and APD. While I would have liked to have seen more of our questions answered, here are some key updates 🧵 (1/5)

— Vanessa Fuentes 💃🏽 (@VanessaForATX) April 18, 2023

Chacon provided more details about the partnership in an April 13 memo to Council and during an April 14 press conference. In both, he said APD has more than 300 vacant officer positions, mirroring shortages at police departments across the country and contributing to rising response times locally. 

DPS officers are assisting APD primarily in two areas: 

• Traffic enforcement along major roadways – U.S. Highway 183, MoPac Expressway and Interstate 35 near downtown – with the highest occurrence of speeding, reckless driving and fatalities, among other offenses.
• Violent crime response, particularly incidents involving firearms, in areas with the highest number of 911 calls. 

The jurisdiction of DPS is statewide, meaning it doesn’t require Council approval or a partnership with APD to operate in Austin. Chacon also acknowledged that DPS operates under its own policies and procedures. But he wrote that there is some overlap with the policies of APD and that DPS defers to the local district or county attorney’s prosecutorial practices, meaning its officers often follow the lead of APD on issues such as low-level marijuana offenses by issuing citations instead of making arrests. 

“DPS is here to help,” he told Council on Tuesday. “They’re not here to take over. They’re certainly not here to cause harm or anxiety.” 

APD Chief Data Officer Jonathan Kringen also provided data from the first two weeks of the partnership, which he said already suggested an initial reduction in violent crime, call volume and response times as a result of the partnership when compared to the same time period last year. 

Interim City Manager Jesús Garza defended the partnership, which he described as “an absolute right move” given the shortages at APD, despite not having time to “normalize” it with Council in advance. 

“We’re in a crisis situation with respect to staffing at APD,” he said during the work session. “This isn’t just a would-be-nice-to-have. It’s a must-have. And we don’t have it.”

But there was pushback on the dais. 

District 3 Council Member José Velásquez raised concerns about DPS officers prioritizing certain neighborhoods, including along Riverside Drive and Oltorf Street, despite APD’s explanation that such presence was driven by data. 

“You can tell that there’s a very heavy police presence in District 3,” he said. 

District 4 Council Member Chito Vela asked APD leadership what offenses had led to DPS arrests in Austin – and whether they were low-level misdemeanors that might otherwise result in a citation. 

“There is a kind of resentment, especially where a lot of the stops are just patrol stops for relatively minor traffic violations,” he said.

District 10 Council Member Alison Alter pressed for more clarity around DPS policy, including regarding mass protests and officer-involved shootings. 

“I think it would be better to have that clear before any sort of incident happens, and hopefully no incident will happen,” she said.

Alter also asked APD leadership and city staff whether they had plans for exiting the DPS partnership and for resolving APD’s staffing shortages in the long term. 

“It’s not sustainable to do this,” she said. 

Mayor Pro Tem Paige Ellis and others also called for a balance between increasing police presence in response to Austinites who say it will make them feel safer while also recognizing that such presence will make others feel more at risk.

“We have to be very mindful about the perception of safety,” she said.

Photo made available through a Creative Commons license.

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