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 […]
Emma Freer
Posted inCity Hall
Public Safety Commission, APD reach a detente
The Public Safety Commission and the Austin Police Department are recovering from a tense meeting earlier this month, at which APD leadership threatened to no longer attend commission meetings and commissioners lamented APD’s unresponsiveness, revealing a widening chasm. That’s why APD leadership’s appearance before the Public Safety Commission was noteworthy during a special called meeting […]
Posted inPolice
Public Safety Commission greenlights license-plate reader program amid police pushback
The Public Safety Commission voted unanimously on Monday that City Council approve a pilot program reinstating the Austin Police Department’s license-plate reader program – with caveats. Council is due to revisit a new contract for license-plate reader systems and related services with a third-party vendor at its Thursday meeting. The Public Safety Commission heeded criminal […]
Posted inPolice
APD, Public Safety Commission clash over decorum, responsiveness
Austin Police Chief Joseph Chacon threatened to withhold his department’s participation in future meetings of the city’s Public Safety Commission, citing a lack of decorum and exposing deep-seated tensions between the two entities. Commissioners, in turn, spoke of APD leadership’s frequent refusal to answer their questions, preventing them from serving their advisory function to City […]
Posted inPolice
Council OKs license-plate reader contract negotiations, amid community concerns
City Council is taking steps that will allow the Austin Police Department to reintroduce – on a much grander scale – its license-plate reader program, which was shelved as a result of major departmental budget cuts in 2020. Council authorized city staff to negotiate a new contract for license-plate reader camera systems and related services […]
Posted inPolice
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 […]
Posted inElections
May 2023 Austin election ballot propositions: Voter resource
Austin voters will soon decide the fates of two warring police oversight propositions on the May 6 ballot. The election arrives after more than a year of police labor contract negotiations with the Austin Police Association, which City Council scuttled, citing disapproval of former City Manager Spencer Cronk’s handling of the process and a desire […]
Posted inPolice
New APD-DPS partnership sparks pushback, arrests
Austin Mayor Kirk Watson cited long-standing police staffing shortages, which have led to a “decentralized” approach to traffic enforcement among other things, when he announced last week that the Texas Department of Public Safety would soon begin playing a supportive role to the Austin Police Department. But the partnership has caused consternation among criminal justice […]
Posted inPolice
City Council delays vote on police dash-cam contract
City Council voted unanimously to postpone voting on a three-year, $3.8 million contract to update the Austin Police Department’s fleet of dashboard cameras, citing concerns about the vendor’s built-in automated license plate reader, or ALPR, technology. “There’s lots of things we do that have some risk, and there’s some risk in this (delay), but it’s […]
Posted inPolice
Report: APD Training Academy curriculum review flawed, hampered by resistance to reform
A third-party evaluation of the Austin Police Department Training Academy’s curriculum review process found it lacked “a clearly defined mission and scope, which hampered its effectiveness from the beginning,” and that it suffered from instructors’ resistance to reform and did little to improve police-community relations, echoing previous concerns. At City Council’s direction, city staff hired […]
Posted inPolice
City Council takes step to restart Community Police Academy
After a three-year pandemic hiatus, the Austin Police Department’s Community Police Academy, a 14-week program designed for members of the public, may soon resume classes. City Council voted last week to direct city staff to report back on the possibility of restarting the academy, which had graduated 2,716 community members across 101 classes as of […]
Posted inPublic Safety
Fire, EMS unions echo calls for city to review extreme weather policies
An ice storm last month prompted fears of a Winter Storm Uri redux, with widespread power outages, and concerns among city officials, including about the leadership of since-terminated City Manager Spencer Cronk. Now, fire and EMS union representatives have joined the call for policy reforms. Austin Firefighters Association President Bob Nicks and Austin-Travis County Emergency […]