Public Safety Commission recommends guardrails for APD-DPS partnership – or ending it

The Public Safety Commission recommended that City Council establish a plan governing the recently resumed partnership between the Austin Police Department and the Texas Department of Public Safety – or discontinue it altogether. 

Commissioners voted on Monday to approve the recommendation, which calls for “significant community engagement,” as well as parameters defining “goals, time periods, accountability, data sharing, reporting and expectations.” Two members – Pierre Nguyen and Timothy Ruttan – abstained, citing a “lack of concrete measures,” such as specific demands for community engagement and a clear timeline for implementation. 

Commissioner Lauren Peña supported the resolution, saying such parameters would help rebuild community trust in the police in the wake of the partnership, which has sparked concerns about racial profiling and over-policing. 

Peña also spoke about her experience as a resident of District 3, where DPS initially had concentrated its presence. She’s hosting a birthday party for her young son next week, but many invitees have declined her invitation; she said that “they’re afraid to drive to my house and celebrate” because of the police presence. 

“I’m not saying we should get rid of (the partnership) completely, but we do need some transparency,” she said. “The most important thing we can do as a community is to have trust between the community and the police.” 

In response to commissioners’ concerns, interim Assistant City Manager Bruce Mills said the Austin Police Department and the Texas Department of Public Safety had changed tacks since the early weeks of the partnership, rerouting state troopers to other districts and neighborhoods.

“Just like other people commenting, we don’t want DPS to police this city,” he said, adding the caveat that Austin Police Department’s sworn staffing shortages had made the partnership a “necessity.” 

The partnership, first announced on March 27 and paused in mid-May when Gov. Greg Abbott deployed state troopers to the Texas-Mexico border, resumed on July 2. Preliminary data from the Travis County Attorney’s Office showed that nine out of 10 people arrested by troopers on misdemeanor charges were Black or Latino, vastly outpacing their share of the city’s population, as the Austin Monitor previously reported. 

The city said the partnership’s second phase would be different, with state troopers deployed according to crash and violent crime rates, as well as to staffing needs, rather than “highest call volume and traffic,” according to a June 22 news release. 

But public opinion remains divided. 

Bill Brice, senior vice president of investor relations for the Downtown Austin Alliance, supports the partnership.

“Right now, there is an increasing feeling of unlawfulness and a lack of safety downtown,” he told commissioners.

Criminal justice reform advocates from the Austin Justice Coalition and Grassroots Leadership continue to call for an end to the partnership, which they said caused fear among communities of color. 

Chas Moore, co-executive director of the Austin Justice Coalition, urged the commission to seek more information about the origins of the partnership, which he claimed “just popped up” without Council or community involvement, and about the Department of Public Safety’s policies, some of which diverge from those of the Austin Police Department. 

“We have a foreign agency in our city that we are asking to protect and serve people, but their policies (and) procedures are not available to the public,” he said.

Photo made available through a Creative Commons license.

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