APD, DPS brief Public Safety Committee on suspended partnership

More than a week after the Austin Police Department announced its controversial partnership with the Texas Department of Public Safety had come to a close, law enforcement officials on Monday briefed the city’s Public Safety Committee on the now-defunct deployment and responded – again – to City Council members’ concerns about equity and transparency. 

Austin Mayor Kirk Watson cited long-standing police staffing shortages as the impetus for the APD-DPS partnership, which began on March 30 and had as its goals reducing serious traffic injuries and fatalities, violent – and especially gun – crime, and 911 call response times. 

But preliminary data from the Travis County Attorney’s Office showed that nine out of 10 people arrested by DPS on misdemeanor charges were Black or Latino, vastly outpacing their share of the city’s population and exacerbating concerns about racial profiling, as the Austin Monitor previously reported. 

APD Chief Joseph Chacon said on May 2 that he would change the deployment strategy. Shortly after, however, DPS pulled out of the partnership to deploy troopers to the Texas-Mexico border, as reported by KUT.

During this latest briefing, APD leadership told committee members that DPS troopers concentrated in Council districts 3 and 4 – both of which have greater proportions of Black and Latino residents than the city as a whole – because of department data showing they have higher rates of crashes and 911 calls involving firearms. 

Chacon also pointed to department data showing an apparent reduction in injury collisions, violent crime and response times in the areas where DPS deployed as proof of the partnership’s success.

“DPS is that force multiplier that was really helping us to slow all of these things, to have them go on the decline,” he told the committee. “And the fact that they’re not here now, we are seeing that those numbers are starting to climb again.” 

District 4 Council Member Chito Vela said he appreciated APD’s responsiveness to the concerns about racial profiling.

“I know that, from my perspective, folks in the Lamar-Rundberg area who were feeling over-policed have not been contacting me as much about those concerns,” he said. “So, my sense is that there was kind of a certain relief to see the patrol spread out.” 

District 2 Council Member Vanessa Fuentes acknowledged APD’s explanation for concentrating DPS troopers in certain districts. She also pointed to data from the Travis County Attorney’s Office showing that citations were concentrated in the Riverside neighborhood as opposed to along Interstate 35, where crashes are more frequent. 

DPS Regional Director Vincent Luciano suggested this discrepancy could be the result of the partnership’s aim to increase law enforcement presence as opposed to setting speed traps along the highway.

“The goal of this operation was to be seen, to be visible, with a presence that deters both violent crime and … bad driving,” he said. 

APD leadership also updated the committee on their lack of arrest and citation data, which would allow for a more granular analysis of the partnership.

“We have challenges getting some of the data,” Chacon said, adding that APD had requested it from DPS as well as from the Travis County district and county attorneys. 

District 7 Council Member Leslie Pool expressed disappointment over this roadblock.

“I sure do hope that we see these obstacles be overcome and that we get full accounting and transparency on arrests from our partners with the county really, really soon,” she said. 

The APD-DPS partnership has proven divisive among Austinites. Some, like Craig Staley, owner of Royal Blue Grocery, are supportive and would like to see DPS troopers deployed to other neighborhoods, including downtown.

“We’re having a hard time keeping our staff safe, and we’re at the point now where there’s a crime committed in one of our stores every day,” he told the committee. “This DPS partnership is vital to getting us through the (APD staffing shortages) that’s probably gonna go on for years, and I urge you to codify this partnership long-term.” 

But others, including several faith and community leaders, raised concerns about the partnership.

The Rev. Daryl Horton of Mt. Zion Baptist Church in East Austin said he shares the community’s concerns about crime but also worries about a lack of transparency. 

“I don’t have to tell you that perception becomes reality when people look at their experiences and how they feel they’re being treated, how they perceive that actions are being taken in their area,” he told the committee. “So, I think in an effort to help the community to feel safer with the actions that are being taken, we would just encourage some kind of way to get a greater amount of communication out to the public to allow them to understand that the reason why DPS is present is to curb the things that are taking place, not to harass or to do other things.” 

Cynthia Simons, director of women’s justice at the Texas Center for Justice and Equity, went further, urging Council members to end the APD-DPS partnership permanently. 

“To say this is not racist when 90 percent of the people who are being ticketed are people of color is illogical and irrational,” she said. “It’s absolutely racist, and it’s absolutely a result of the systemic racism and structural inequities that have always existed. And if we wanna move towards safer communities, we have to address the mitigating factors that got us to this point.” 

When asked, Luciano said there’s no specific timeline for resuming the partnership but that DPS plans on returning to it. 

“We are still trying to be the best partners we can be to the city of Austin,” he said. 

Photo made available through a Creative Commons license.

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