The Austin City Council is a cancer. If you live in Austin, please get out and vote in November. Tell your friends and neighbors to vote.
Here's a link to contact the Austin City Council. Please reach out. You don't need to be a resident of Austin to make your voice heard if you either agree or disagree with their decisions.
The city council made it abundantly clear that they are open to outside influence when I watched hundreds of outside influencers step off of their planes from the airport and rush to city hall to speak out against law enforcement.
I emailed my city council democrat. No response. I included personal stories of being accosted (not just approached) by homeless men downtown with my teenagers present.
Not surprisingly, crime is up with 4 murders in one night last week. One appears to be related to 2 competing groups of evacuees from the Beaumont area, but even 3 in one night is crazy.
As soon as my son is in college we're looking to get out. Taxes are too high to deal with this lack of basic safety and trashiness that is increasing. They're likely going to vote in the new CapMetro train in November, so taxes will only go up.
I hate to open this portal to F16, plus there is already another thread on this topic and I'd rather have no discussion on this board than discussion but here goes
I don't see any issue with moving the 95 officers. DWI enforcement and parks can be covered by regular beats and boogeyman of gangs isn't nearly as bad as you'd think. I sat on a grand jury for 6 months and after that realized our crime in Austin doesn't justify a huge force.
The other moves were largely just reorganization of funds and units such as moving the Forensic Labs which have no business being under police control and emergency dispatchers to another unit that will implement a mental health approach to some dispatches but remain similar for the most part.
I don't think we need to completely dissolve the police but you need to ask yourself a few questions?
Does Austin need 2200 police, 800 support staff and a half a billion dollar budget? Our violent crime rate is approximately half that of the other major Texas cities and even less when you include the metros. Many cities with Austin's population, demographics and crime rates get by with less officers per capital. We also have a lot of other police adjacent agencies FBI, Rangers, and troopers all operating more in Austin because of the capital.
Does our police force need military like weaponry?
Queue the thundering herd and remember to include in your post whether you have an Austin or Austin metro address.
Also TAMC I'm sorry that happened to you and would love to know more about it, assuming it's not too stressful for you to talk about.
Thank you for your response. The night you're referencing was busy for sure. We had three fatality crashes on that day, three homicides, and I believe two additional shootings. Two of the fatal crashes occurred within two minutes of one another within separate parts of the city. To say that is taxing on limited staffing is an understatement.
During the fight downtown amongst evacuees, the woman murdered was actually an innocent bystander.
Keep hammering them. Contact the local news outlets on social media and let them know how those clowns are refusing to face their constituents and answer for the decisions that they've made.
"Save Austin Now" is a group that has been actively attempting to get the camping ban onto a ballot to let the citizens vote on it. They've discovered through open record requests email correspondence amongst council members and city staff that council and staff are actively undermining their attempts to let the citizens have a voice.
The entire department has been authorized to contact the council (typically considered going outside your chain of command).
I've emailed every single one of them with questions concerning how their decisions are actively undermining specific campaigns that they actively support. I've received limited feedback from two of the eleven. One of the replies didn't even have my name spelled correctly and was completely dismissive.
It's mind boggling. I wouldn't trust those fools to run for their local PTA much less a city this size. One of the council recently asked the department if a person actually has to be a police officer to make a traffic stop. All part of their nonsensical "reimagining policing" effort In regards to traffic enforcement.
Newly created account that is going to provide up to date crime info for the city. Historically, the department's social media presence has lacked in the area of relevant, real time information.
I know I get annoyed reading about adopting dogs and seeing stupid reminders to lock my doors at 9pm each night that typically come from the department accounts.
The city council recently pulled the department's public information office so the department is no longer in control of their own messaging. All content is filtered/approved through another city department.
I don't see any issue with moving the 95 officers. DWI enforcement and parks can be covered by regular beats and boogeyman of gangs isn't nearly as bad as you'd think. I sat on a grand jury for 6 months and after that realized our crime in Austin doesn't justify a huge force.
I don't think we need to completely dissolve the police but you need to ask yourself a few questions?
Does Austin need 2200 police, 800 support staff and a half a billion dollar budget? Our violent crime rate is approximately half that of the other major Texas cities and even less when you include the metros. Many cities with Austin's population, demographics and crime rates get by with less officers per capital. We also have a lot of other police adjacent agencies FBI, Rangers, and troopers all operating more in Austin because of the capital.
Does our police force need military like weaponry?
I am a current Austin police officer. When I logged off this morning to leave work, officers working in the southeast area of the city just finished actively fighting a known, documented gang member over possession of a pistol. They successfully took him into custody without serious injury and he's currently under arrest for being a felon in possession of a firearm among other things. I was not on scene and don't know any more of the details.
Around midnight last night in the area of Manor and Ed Bluestein, officers were able to arrive on scene shortly after a drive-by shooting that left one victim with multiple gunshot wounds. Officer's were able to apply multiple tourniquets prior to EMS arrival. I'm not sure the victim's status.
I can personally assure you that "the boogeyman of gangs" is much worse than you'd think. I was the first on scene when my co-worker was nearly shot in the head by your supposed "boogeyman". Our crime scene personnel (forensics folks that don't belong under APD per your statement) were able to swab gunshot residue from my co-workers face due to how close the gun was when it was discharged.
Thank you for your service on a grand jury. Don't kid yourself that your work as a juror had any correlation with the level of crime that occurs on a daily basis in this city.
You were exposed to cases that the district attorney either decided to pursue, or was required to present before a grand jury. It is disgusting the sheer volume of felony charges that are reduced to misdemeanors or outright dismissed by that political office.
The parks unit is comprised of 31 officers who have access to ATVs, fat-tired mountain bicycles, motorcycles designed for trail use, and other specialized equipment.
Their sole focus is to respond to and patrol the hundreds of miles of city jogging trails, green belt, and parks. When the camping ban was lifted, the parks unit was one of the few units who was mandated to have 100% staffing, due to the violent attacks and sexual assaults that occurred deep within the city's trail systems. To remove an officer that has intimate knowledge of the city green belt and replace him with a regular patrol officer is foolish. But this city council has tasked the Chief with squeezing blood from a turnip.
The DWI unit is comprised of 20 specially trained officers who are all required to attain a DRE (drug recognition expert) certification to remain active on the unit. DRE cert involves identifying any substances, other than alcohol, that a driver may be impaired on through a series of evaluations that occur at the jail once a subject has been placed under arrest.
The Austin Police DWI unit conducted over 300 DRE exams last year. DPS (statewide numbers) had the 2nd most DRE exams. To say Austin has a drinking and driving and a drugged driving problem is an understatement.
The DWI unit additionally made ~40% of the department's total DWI arrests last year. They proactively seek out impaired drivers while also responding to patrol requests for assist. If a patrol officer responds to a crash, or makes a traffic stop, and believes the driver is impaired, a DWI Officer will take responsibility for that investigation and allow for that patrol officer to resume taking 911 calls.
DWI officers additionally investigate all high-profile DWI cases (ie Cedric Benson/Former DA Rosemary Lehmburg) as well as investigate all intoxication manslaughter cases. I'm not sure about you, but I would appreciate an experienced officer doing the investigation if a loved one was ever killed by an impaired driver.
The department has never had an authorized strength of 2,200 officers. FBI recommendations are 2 officers/1,000 residents and Austin currently sits well below that number.
This current council has spent tax dollars on two separate staffing studies to determine whether the department needs additional officers. Both external studies came back and determined that the city needed to increase police staffing.
The most recent authorized strength was 1,959 sworn FTEs. The city council took away 150 vacant positions which reduced the staffing to 1,809 authorized strength. 1,809 is authorized strength, not actual boots on the ground. We still have vacancies and I believe we have around 1,600-1,700 sworn officers. The city councils decision to delay police academies will have a detrimental impact on filling vacancies. Initial application to being a productive officer can be ~2 yrs.
Your last concern about "military like weaponry" is simply ignorant. I'm not going to waste any more time unpacking that.
I'm exhausted from my shift and have stayed up way too late to respond to your post. I hope my reply provided some helpful feedback.
I appreciate your response and certainly your service and do think our officers need resources and believe we need to consider how we allocate resources. Better training, better salaries and better technology for our officers is a must.
Thanks for the color on number of officers that does change my point of view based on the external studies. If there are links to those I'd love to read them. By way of background my practice focuses on the intersection of law, technology, privacy and enforcement. I focus on primarily white collar crime professionally but philanthropically support many of the innocents projects. We know that we can reduce crime by preventing the elements that cause crime, in the fraud space that's opportunity, rationalization and incentive pressure.
While I am pretty conservative, I am very liberal on the issues of substance abuse, because of my families personal experience with substance abuse and the legal system. From my perspective neither drinking and driving nor drugs should be illegal. Drinking and crashing sure, and robbery to get drugs sure. The war on drugs is war on the poor.
Non police traffics enforcement is an interesting idea in theory, make traffic enforcement only about traffic. No longer allow warrantless vehicle search, search for pending for pending warrants or actual arrest. Again I support a reduction in traffic enforcement and laws all together.
While no one likes to be called ignorant, I would like to know more about the weaponry and armor most officers have access and the correlation to escalation vs de-escalation. I also appreciate the anecdotal evidence and the service of those involved but we should base our decision making on city wide data not specific situations.
Finally, I totally get your frustration, I can't imagine why anyone would want to be a police officer right now, even before his tide it was the hardest job for the least pay and now I can only imagine it's a nightmare. Thank you for being a good force for change and engaging in intelligent conversations and sharing your point of view .
My position based on your response is execute the recommendations of the third party study, continue to reimagine and decide what is the police's responsibilities and what are not. Move the forensic labs out of the police department for sure
Inform yourself through first hand sources like OP and actual data based studies not just the headline on Fox, CNN or Facebook.
op-06 - Thank you for your service and putting yourself in harm's way to keep our community safe.
I believe the vast majority of the people support our police and understand the overwhelming majority of officers are dedicated public servants. Unfortunately through social media, distortion of statistics by the mainstream media, and the inability of many of our elected officials to understand potential negative consequences of poor policy we find ourselves in a challenging times. Hang in there.
I appreciate the information about organizations to support good policing and smart policy making in Austin. Please share other information that may be helpful to get connected.
I appreciate your response and certainly your service and do think our officers need resources and believe we need to consider how we allocate resources. Better training, better salaries and better technology for our officers is a must.
Thanks for the color on number of officers that does change my point of view based on the external studies. If there are links to those I'd love to read them. By way of background my practice focuses on the intersection of law, technology, privacy and enforcement. I focus on primarily white collar crime professionally but philanthropically support many of the innocents projects. We know that we can reduce crime by preventing the elements that cause crime, in the fraud space that's opportunity, rationalization and incentive pressure.
While I am pretty conservative, I am very liberal on the issues of substance abuse, because of my families personal experience with substance abuse and the legal system. From my perspective neither drinking and driving nor drugs should be illegal. Drinking and crashing sure, and robbery to get drugs sure. The war on drugs is war on the poor.
Non police traffics enforcement is an interesting idea in theory, make traffic enforcement only about traffic. No longer allow warrantless vehicle search, search for pending for pending warrants or actual arrest. Again I support a reduction in traffic enforcement and laws all together.
While no one likes to be called ignorant, I would like to know more about the weaponry and armor most officers have access and the correlation to escalation vs de-escalation. I also appreciate the anecdotal evidence and the service of those involved but we should base our decision making on city wide data not specific situations.
Finally, I totally get your frustration, I can't imagine why anyone would want to be a police officer right now, even before his tide it was the hardest job for the least pay and now I can only imagine it's a nightmare. Thank you for being a good force for change and engaging in intelligent conversations and sharing your point of view .
My position based on your response is execute the recommendations of the third party study, continue to reimagine and decide what is the police's responsibilities and what are not. Move the forensic labs out of the police department for sure
Inform yourself through first hand sources like OP and actual data based studies not just the headline on Fox, CNN or Facebook.
"hardest job for least pay" I dont know about that. i bet many 3 year officers with AFD clear $90k with overtime and supplemental pay. Throw the value of a pension upon retirement on top of that. That isnt exactly peanuts. The idea that police officers and firefighters in major cities are working for say, a teacher's salary is tired, old, parroted phrase.
Keeper - I'd like for you to explain to me how exactly you would expect to legalize drunk driving and not see a massive increase in drunk crashing. There are many innocent victims of drunk driving leading to drunk crashing each year. Based on NHTSA stats, the number of deaths due to drunk driving drawfs the number of unarmed men (of all races) killed by police. It is isn't even close, something like 100 vs. over 10,000 drunk driving deaths nationwide. So you're suggesting we reduce policing of an activity that has innocent victims in almost every circumstance and has a much higher likelihood of killing the average American or impacting a family? That doesn't seem logical, but neither is decreasing funding for police in response to the unfortunate deaths of people at a infinitesimal percentage of police interactions, although the vast majority of those people were engaged in risky behaviors. I'm confused. I know you commented that you didn't want to have an F16 type discussion on the Austin board, but you can't expecting to throw out something like that and expect it to just be ignored.
You also asked about my experience downtown. I was walking with my teenage daughter, her friend, and my pre-teen son near the Driskell hotel. It was about 5pm in the afternoon and still daylight. We were leaving a comedy improv show at the Hide-Out theater and I was going to take them to dinner. A young (20ish) male approached us quickly from the side. He had no shirt on and his pants were almost falling down. He was obviously under the influence of some type of drug. He first started yelling at the girls. It was incoherent but there was cussing and comments / mannerisms that seemed sexual in nature. I stepped up to get in between the man and the girls. He immediately started bowing up and yelling. I simply said, "back up". He cussed at me some, said he needed money. I said "no", and told the kids to keep walking. He lunged to try to push or hit me, but he was stoned enough I was able to avoid him. I kept walking and he followed us for about 30 feet yelling. Since then, my kids really don't have any interest in going downtown.
I could understand this type of behavior at 1am on a Saturday night in a few of the rougher streets. Of course, the ARCH facility seems to encourage this type of element and behavior right in the heart of downtown where tourists and families would expect to be safe. Another failure by the City Council......
Putting the ARCH right near 6th st and city countil thinking it will be ok is about right on par for all of those knuckleheads. That is what Manor is for. Also, if youre homeless in Austin and living in the heat 9 months a year, youre really dumb. Cut the booze and save up for a one way ticket to San Diego.
Agreed the ARCH location is very problematic and TAMC sorry that happened to you, but incarceration In our current facilities is not the answer to that. Better mental heath support including mandatory detention and rehabilitation is. I also appreciate your thoughtful response.
My thought on drinking and driving is drive drunk and kill or injure someone treat It like any other murder, assault, or property destruction same penalties. Similar to the concept of hate crimes. Regardless of intent the crimes should be punished the same. In any case texting or browsing and driving is just as if not more dangerous, however we decide to punish drinking and driving texted and driving should be punished equally.
If someone is driving drunk pull them over put them in an Uber home and suspend their license. If DWI was truly about protecting the public and not about revenue generation we'd make breathalyzers required to start every car.
Well Keeper, please fund the building, staffing, and maintenance of these detention and rehab facilities. Thanks for your donation in keeping Austin safe.
Last Sunday afternoon my wife and I went for a walk on the trail around lady bird lake. Just past auditorium shores a shirtless and probably homeless guy got up from a bench and yelled "what the F are you looking at?" to me for absolutely no reason. I was really surprised and made the mistake of replying "F you". He proceeded to pull a large chain out of his shorts with a large metal padlock on it and started swinging it around and walking towards us. I got between him and my wife and started backing up. He continued to curse loudly at me and kept walking for awhile but finally stopped following us. I have never had anything like this happen and was really in shock. We did a 6 mile walk and I didnt see a single police officer the whole time which is not usual. Also saw multiple people using drugs in plain sight.
This city really is becoming unsafe downtown. I'm a bigger dude and also have my LTC and i still dont want to go downtown anymore.
I had to go downtown to my office last week for a short bit, first time in a couple of months. I pulled into a basically empty pay parking lot and immediately noticed a rough looking dude eying me from his bench. As I started to park my car I noticed him walking over. I said "screw this", and decided to head back home. Not worth it.
Heard similar stories lately from a couple of people. The desperates have a much much smaller supply of marks these days with nobody downtown and they're, well....desperate. Not a good scene built by Adler and team.
I will happily do that and already do contribute, as a person of faith I feel like that's is far less than my responsibility. I know that most people today don't subscribe to the theories of faith but I try and often fail to use my faith to guide my principles
We can easily find that without and additional tax burden with welfare reform, closing corporate tax loopholes, shifting funds away from the incarceration of non violent offenders and rebucketing currently allocated policing funds.
If you are interested I can help point you to some great organizations working to make a difference both faith and not faith based.
Also I agree with you TAMC that the current movement in general is an overreaction and in many cases the officers were not wrong. However, our justice system does need improvements as the poor fare much worse than those of means
Man I live near downtown, work in downtown And walk the trails regularly and haven't seen that but that is a shame. The Covid over reaction is definitely contributing to that is my guess
Your last comment is 100% what my post is about and one thing that we agree on. Change needs to occur but what the city council is doing is 100% not the correct way to go about doing it.
Whatever you think needs to occur, and hopefully our dialogue shines some light into what is *actually* occurring, please contact the city council and make your voice be heard.
The city council has spent ~300,00.00 dollars for staffing studies and are completely disregarding the fix that outside experts suggest to do. I'm working on replying to your previous posts but wanted to touch base with you on your most recent one.
While I am pretty conservative, I am very liberal on the issues of substance abuse, because of my families personal experience with substance abuse and the legal system. From my perspective neither drinking and driving nor drugs should be illegal. Drinking and crashing sure, and robbery to get drugs sure. The war on drugs is war on the poor.
Non police traffics enforcement is an interesting idea in theory, make traffic enforcement only about traffic. No longer allow warrantless vehicle search, search for pending for pending warrants or actual arrest. Again I support a reduction in traffic enforcement and laws all together.
While no one likes to be called ignorant, I would like to know more about the weaponry and armor most officers have access and the correlation to escalation vs de-escalation. I also appreciate the anecdotal evidence and the service of those involved but we should base our decision making on city wide data not specific situations.
My position based on your response is execute the recommendations of the third party study, continue to reimagine and decide what is the police's responsibilities and what are not. Move the forensic labs out of the police department for sure.
Here are a few links from the Matrix Report and PERF study in regards to staffing needs within the department.
The police department is, without a doubt, understaffed. The city council has voted to delay police cadet classes which will ensure that the department remains that way for the foreseeable future.
Without anyone in the training pipeline, the department cannot fill vacancies. The council has seized on this opportunity by reducing FTEs and removing those positions from the police budget.
The department will no longer be able to pay officers to work on their day off to supplement patrol shifts due to the removal of these funds from the budget.
I'm not going to get into the weeds about pretext traffic stops. They serve their purpose and the USSC has ruled that they are completely legally.
What the city council is discussing is whether we truly need police officers making "regular" traffic stops. As an example of this type of enticement, the city council questions whether we need police monitoring school zones for speeders. That is what they're referencing when they say "traffic enforcement".
Every officer carries a handgun on their person. In Austin, every officer has access to a shotgun and some officers are authorized to carry a semi-automatic AR-15 style rifle if they've attended specific training. One trigger pull, one bullet. This is a different, but similar weapon platform as the military M4 that is capable of firing in a fully automatic manner.
Every officer is issued and mandated to wear soft body armor. This is a bullet resistant vest that is bullet resistant, not bullet proof, that protects vital organs. Every officer is also issued a plate carrier with hard rifle plates that can be donned over their uniform to protect against higher caliber rifle rounds.
The justification for the above weaponry does not need to be provided in 2020. The North Hollywood shootout in 1997 involving under equipped officers forever changed how law enforcement officers are equipped.
Similar to how the Columbine massacre in 1999 forever changed how police respond to active shooters. Setting up a perimeter and waiting for SWAT during an active shooter situation is a tactic of the past.
Patrol officers have to be equipped and trained to respond to these situations. The overwhelming majority of active shooters stop killing innocent people when confronted by an armed citizen or officer. There are hundreds of cases and data points to back up these facts.
In regards to "de-escalation" training, the Austin Police academy is nearly 4 months longer than the state of Texas requires. Cadets receive more training that is above and beyond what the state mandates in regards to de-escalation and mental health training. Simply put, the quality of training that comes from the training staff at the academy is second to none.
The city council disagrees and would lead folks to believe that the academy is substandard and cranks out a militia of blood-thirsty soldiers.
As such, they've decided to delay every remaining academy class this year and every academy class in FY21. This is going to have a devastating impact on staffing levels for years to come. I've said it before, but from date of application to being an officer answering a 911 call can often be a ~2 year long process.
As part of the council's investigation into what they perceive as systemic racism and substandard training, the council has created a committee of citizen volunteers to review every single training video that is played for cadets throughout their ~8 month long academy.
An instructor is on hand to play the video for the committee, but is NOT allowed to offer feedback, answer questions, or provide context as to why the cadets are shown that specific video.
As an example, I'd wager nearly officer in the state of Texas has seen the video of DPS Trooper Randy Vetter being murdered outside of San Marcos during the course of a "routine" traffic stop. I'd encourage you to watch it.
The review panel gets to see this same video without context as to what the takeaway/lessons learned from that video are.
They are left to discuss amongst themselves whether it's necessary to show a cadet this training video and again, can not seek feedback from the academy instructor that is present in the room. That is a nonsensical approach to reforming police training. It is absurd that the council has at their disposal experts in policing but are using their limited knowledge gleaned from a tweet or a hashtag to make decisions that will forever impact this city.
In relation to your idea that an impaired driver should be stopped and placed in an Uber/no harm-no foul situation, what deters that behavior from reoccurring in the future?
You're saying that one should be able to drive drunk every day of the week, so long as they don't crash, and they are "only" risking being placed into an Uber if caught.
You mention your belief that DWI Enforcement isn't about safety, but rather about revenue generation. But then immediately suggest that someone should be placed into an Uber and have their license suspended.
License suspension laws have recently changed due to the state surcharge program actually being a huge revenue generator that disproportionally affects minorities. License surcharges due to suspension has a devastating snowball effect that buries people under surcharges. I am 100% supportive of the removal of this program.
What would you suggest happens when police stop that same driver with a suspended license that shouldn't be driving? Should they have a second suspension? Face arrest? Again, what do you think should be in place to change or modify their behavior.
In reference to mental health and mandatory treatment, are you advocating giving the government *more* authority to restrict a person's civil liberties simply due to having a mental disease? Who makes the judgement on whether your disease is severe enough that the government gets to decide what is best for you? Simply having a mental illness is not against the law nor should it be.
While the system is currently in bad need of repair, the courts currently CAN mandate treatment for substance abuse and mental illness when that treatment is specifically tied to a crime that is committed.
I'll continue to use DWI as an example. Drive drunk, get arrested, attend court mandated alcohol awareness classes/drug treatment, and you get probation/deferred adjudication the majority of the time.
You have a "clean" arrest record and move on with your life. In Travis County particularly, a first time DWI offender will NEVER see the inside of a jail cell past their initial arrest date pending any extraordinary circumstances involving their arrest, or unless their past criminal conduct would suggest a repeat offender.
I agree with you, it doesn't matter to me whether victim services or the forensics lab is under the umbrella of the police department so long as the function and service remains the same. They can reimagine that service however they like.
The current actions the city council has taken is not doing anything to improve public safety. Quite the opposite. I hope I've relayed enough information to highlight that fact.
Simply put, they are a group of socialists and marxist's who live in an imaginary utopia. They are hell bent on dismantling law enforcement.
"Downtown Jimmy" is openly suggesting BLOWING UP the main police headquarters as a symbolic gesture towards the Black Lives Matter movement. To hear that type of rhetoric coming from an elected official is absolutely absurd.
I appreciate your response and certainly your service and do think our officers need resources and believe we need to consider how we allocate resources. Better training, better salaries and better technology for our officers is a must.
Thanks for the color on number of officers that does change my point of view based on the external studies. If there are links to those I'd love to read them. By way of background my practice focuses on the intersection of law, technology, privacy and enforcement. I focus on primarily white collar crime professionally but philanthropically support many of the innocents projects. We know that we can reduce crime by preventing the elements that cause crime, in the fraud space that's opportunity, rationalization and incentive pressure.
While I am pretty conservative, I am very liberal on the issues of substance abuse, because of my families personal experience with substance abuse and the legal system. From my perspective neither drinking and driving nor drugs should be illegal. Drinking and crashing sure, and robbery to get drugs sure. The war on drugs is war on the poor.
Non police traffics enforcement is an interesting idea in theory, make traffic enforcement only about traffic. No longer allow warrantless vehicle search, search for pending for pending warrants or actual arrest. Again I support a reduction in traffic enforcement and laws all together.
While no one likes to be called ignorant, I would like to know more about the weaponry and armor most officers have access and the correlation to escalation vs de-escalation. I also appreciate the anecdotal evidence and the service of those involved but we should base our decision making on city wide data not specific situations.
Finally, I totally get your frustration, I can't imagine why anyone would want to be a police officer right now, even before his tide it was the hardest job for the least pay and now I can only imagine it's a nightmare. Thank you for being a good force for change and engaging in intelligent conversations and sharing your point of view .
My position based on your response is execute the recommendations of the third party study, continue to reimagine and decide what is the police's responsibilities and what are not. Move the forensic labs out of the police department for sure
Inform yourself through first hand sources like OP and actual data based studies not just the headline on Fox, CNN or Facebook.
"hardest job for least pay" I dont know about that. i bet many 3 year officers with AFD clear $90k with overtime and supplemental pay. Throw the value of a pension upon retirement on top of that. That isnt exactly peanuts. The idea that police officers and firefighters in major cities are working for say, a teacher's salary is tired, old, parroted phrase.
APD is one of the 5 highest paying departments in the nation. The paper had a story 10-15yrs ago about how the average patrol officer made over 100k with OT. Brass make more. Then you retire after 30 yrs and get your entire salary for the rest of your life and are only 50 and can work another gig and make double salary for a decade.
He's inferring that's all cops are *******s with an inferiority complex and are only in this profession so pick on/abuse/take their childhood anger out on others.
And this is exactly the type of government you get when only 11% of all eligible voters bother to cast a ballot.
Apathy is a deadly disease.
Agree 100%. I face the same apathy internally at times. It can be beyond frustrating. I don't care who votes for what; just get out and vote. Make your voice heard at the ballot box and contact the council either in support of their nonsense or speak out against it. The screeching few are currently dictating how the masses are going to suffer.
He is referring to the if you can't do anything else in life you can join the military, police or teaching force. Basically you are short and have less potential which is not fair.
Agree with Op on license suspension, if get a DWI it should go directly to breathalyzer on your vehicle and You pay for at a reasonable rate per month.
Also I would avoid branding someone a socialist as it divides people into teams, me vs you, us vs them which is counter productive, I believe most people on both sides of the aisle want a better America but have different ways on how to do it.
He is referring to the if you can't do anything else in life you can join the military, police or teaching force.
umm, the teaching option requires a college degree, and I believe the police officer option does as well (or at least some college hours completed). So stop with the "can't do anything else in life narrative" for those professions, that's pretty counter productive of you.
Also I would avoid branding someone a socialist as it divides people into teams, me vs you, us vs them which is counter productive, I believe most people on both sides of the aisle want a better America but have different ways on how to do it.
I believe in calling a spade a spade. No use in sugar coating things. You and I appear to have different philosophical beliefs but we've had civil conversations and have found common ground through a few messages on an anonymous forum.
You've already changed your stance on a need for increased staffing after being provided some basic background information. Please contact this council as an Austin resident and voice that opinion. This city council is hell bent on doing the exact opposite.
It's hard to find common ground with a council who openly advocates blowing up the police department as a sign of solidarity with a political movement.
Thank you for your service but contacting this council won't help I'm afraid. It's over for this group and they are full on Seattle, Portland, Chicago, etc.. No matter how many people call them their mind is set. Only way to move back towards more funding is by elections. I wish that would happen but that too is not likely. Stay safe and know there are a lot of us out here that support you. Just not enough in the zip codes of Austin that matter right now. Hope I'm wrong though.
He's inferring that's all cops are *******s with an inferiority complex and are only in this profession so pick on/abuse/take their childhood anger out on others.
Oh....well if so, that's pretty dumb. Maybe he wanted to be an officer but couldn't make it.
I've never had any issue with the police. Of course, when they tell me how high to jump, I ask how high?. Seems to work for me.
To be clear I was answering the question of what he was saying not agreeing with it.
OP fine it you wish to "call a spade a spade" that's fine but similar to the poster calling cops 5'6 little ds it's counterproductive and won't advance our of a better America.You will get angry irrational calls to city hall that will be ignored.
Also it's certainly fine to change your position and mine based on others thoughts that's why you discuss, if I wasn't willing to change my mind I wouldn't post.
Here is my email
Councilwoman Tovo,
Thank you for for your service. I understand you are in a difficult position given the recent political climate. I ask that you think very critically about how we address the issues with our police force. The majority of our officers are good and fair people. The media may portray police differently but we know that is not the case. For officers safety, please listen to third parties on the staffing levels but certainly consider other ways to aid our community with more mental health supply and reduction of police responsibility when it comes to forensic labs, dispatch and training.
I live outside of Austin. Employees have been given approval to contact the council to initiate dialogue. I've made contact with the 10+1 and provided them with links and data to beat them over the head with their own words.
It may not change anything, but I'm done being a silent member who is going to sit down and watch this council destroy this community.
Thank you for your service but contacting this council won't help I'm afraid. It's over for this group and they are full on Seattle, Portland, Chicago, etc.. No matter how many people call them their mind is set. Only way to move back towards more funding is by elections. I wish that would happen but that too is not likely. Stay safe and know there are a lot of us out here that support you. Just not enough in the zip codes of Austin that matter right now. Hope I'm wrong though.
Their mind does indeed appear to be set. That's what appears to happen when they live in their own echo chamber. Even if you live outside of Austin, if you conduct business in Austin, work in Austin, or shop in Austin, you have a vested interest in the safety of the community. Contact the council and make your voice heard.
