After City Council ordered an independent review of the Austin Police Department’s handling of sexual assault cases, the city manager’s office went straight to work. Staffers requested proposals from non-governmental entities with expertise in the prosecution of the crime to review at least 200 APD cases (or 50 percent of cases) and determine the degree […]
Austin Police Department
the law enforcement entity for the City of Austin.
Posted inPublic Safety
In Austin, violent crime is down but hot spots persist
As Austin continues to experience explosive growth as it transforms into one of the nation’s larger metro areas, concerns about big-city-sized crime abound. However, despite meteoric growth, overall violent crime is down. Ron MacKay, the crime analysis division manager with APD, came to the March 4 meeting of the Public Safety Commission to present the […]
Posted inCourts
Sexual assault survivor accuses Travis County prosecutor of lying about her case
Lawyers for a woman who says she was sexually assaulted in Austin are asking a court to force Travis County prosecutors to answer questions and provide evidence after learning of a prosecutor’s phone call they say defames the woman. Emily Borchardt is one of eight plaintiffs who filed a class-action lawsuit against the city and […]
Posted inReporters' Notebook
Reporters Notebook: APD on ICE
Life after SB 4… Following Texas’ Senate Bill 4, also known as the “Sanctuary City bill,” Austin City Council asked that all instances of city collaboration with Immigration and Customs Enforcement be tracked. A Feb. 28 memo from Austin Police Chief Brian Manley sheds light on events from 2018, revealing, “There were 581 instances where APD […]
Posted inPolice
APD Chief Manley addresses sexual assault audit
At the beginning of 2019, Austin Police Department Chief Brian Manley called for a third-party audit of the department’s sexual assault cases. State auditors subsequently found that detectives had wrongly “exceptionally cleared” nearly a third of rape cases over a three-month period in 2017. Responding to these findings, Chief Manley called for an outside review of the […]
Posted inTransportation
Austin records first traffic death involving rented scooter
A 21-year-old scooter rider was killed in a crash last week, says the Austin Police Department. According to the department, it’s the first death related to a rented scooter in Austin. Police say Mark Sands was riding a Lime scooter on the wrong side of the Interstate 35 southbound frontage road at around 1 a.m. Friday […]
Posted inCity Council
City of Austin orders outside review of police handling of sexual assault cases
The city has ordered an independent review of the Austin Police Department’s handling of sexual assault cases, asking investigators to track incidents from when they’re first reported to police to when they’re closed or handed off to the district attorney’s office for prosecution. “The goal of the evaluation is to understand the deeper why behind […]
Posted inReporters' Notebook
Reporter’s Notebook: At long last, an end
Casar wins!… Friday’s news that the Texas Supreme Court has ended the long-running legal battle over the 2014 District 4 City Council race between since-re-elected Greg Casar and former opponent Laura Pressley broke quickly on Twitter, and came with a straitlaced official statement from Casar about all the voter support he has received and how […]
Posted inPolice
Austin Police Department orders outside audit after state finds it misclassified cleared rape cases
The Austin Police Department has ordered a third-party audit of rape investigations after state auditors found it misclassified certain rape cases. “This review will look from the beginning to the end,” Austin Police Chief Brian Manley said. “From the moment we receive the 911 call, the officer’s response to that call, all the way through […]
Posted inPolice
Advocates say APD should focus less on how rape cases are coded and more on solving them
When Austin Police Chief Brian Manley announced last week that state auditors had found problems with the way police classify rape cases, some people were not shocked by the news. “It wasn’t a huge surprise to us,” said Kristen Lenau, who co-founded the Survivor Justice Project, an organization made up of advocates and survivors of […]
Posted inPolice
Police department still waiting for explanation of DPS audit of sexual assault clearance rates
On New Year’s Eve, Austin Police Department Chief Brian Manley gave a press conference in which he noted that nearly two-thirds of the sexual assault cases reviewed by Texas Department of Public Safety from January, November and December of 2017 had been misclassified. He explained that he could not go into further detail at the time […]
Posted inPolice
2018: Manley takes the helm at APD
From a public safety standpoint, Austin police officers went through the wringer in 2018. Most of the year was spent without a contract with the city, in March a serial bomber created terror, and in July the entire fleet of Ford Explorer police cruisers was taken off the streets due to issues with carbon monoxide […]