Texas DPS forced to step in after 'defund' movement ravages Austin police force
Dennis Farris of the Austin Retired Officers Association discusses the police shortage in Austin, Texas that is driving Gov. Greg Abbott to allocate some DPS officers to help out in the area.
The City of Austin announced Wednesday it is suspending its partnership with the Texas Department of Public Safety in a move opponents are decrying as bending toward the will of anti-police activists. This comes on the heels of self-confessed police abolitionist activist Chas Moore, head of the Austin Justice Coalition, blasting the partnership and even questioning its origins in a rambling statement during a meeting of the Austin Publice Safety Commission earlier in the week. Moore's group, which has accepted large donations from groups connected to George Soros, has spearheaded anti-police activism in Austin for the past several years.
The suspension of the working relationship between APD and Texas DPS by Austin’s Interim City Manager Jesús Garza, in consultation with Mayor Kirk Watson, comes after two incidents involving Texas DPS troopers. In the first, a trooper reportedly pulled a gun on a dad and his 10-year-old son during a Sunday-night traffic stop outside their home in South Austin. That report has been sharply disputed by DPS, which says it is releasing bodycam video of the incident.
An Austin Police Department officer on patrol. (Nick Tre. Smith/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
The dad, Carlos Meza, was reportedly being pulled over for lack of paper license plates on his car. Meza told FOX 7 he was unaware that he was being pulled over and let his son out of the car to use the bathroom, prompting the trooper to pull a gun on his son.
And on Monday, another Texas DPS trooper was involved in a high-speed pursuit that ended with the vehicle crashing in a North Austin parking lot and the driver fleeing. The trooper shot the suspect in the arm. Officials later said the suspect is a gang member who had warrants out for their arrest, FOX 7 reported.
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On Monday, the Austin Public Safety Commission approved a recommendation calling for more accountability around the DPS-APD partnership. That commission's members are appointed by the mayor and city council members, several of whom voted to gut APD's budget by about one-third in August 2020. That budget cut led to mass departures of Austin police officers, the vast majority of whom have not been replaced, and the cancelation of police academy classes. Those classes have resumed but are not yet producing new officers at the rate needed to replace officers who have already left the force.
Texas DPS’ partnership with the Austin Police Department began in March after crime increased following the police budget cut. The partnership was paused in May as Texas DPS officers attended to issues at the border as illegal crossings increased dramatically, but it resumed earlier this month.
Mayor Watson himself touted the partnership as "innovative" and said it was intended to make Austinites "feel safe and be safe" but "recent events" demonstrated the need for a suspension.
FILE: Texas DPS trooper exiting vehicle. (Texas DPS)
By the mayor’s own telling, Texas DPS' support has led to a decrease in violent crime, fewer traffic fatalities, shorter response times, and seizures of "significant amounts" of illicit drugs.
The mayor apparently gave Austin Police Chief Joseph Chacon little warning of the decision and was not consulted about it. In an email from Chief Chacon to the department reported by KVUE, he wrote that he was "notified a short time ago" that the partnership was being suspended, adding that he "will provide additional information as I receive it."
On Monday, Mayor Watson told KXAN there was no timeline on how long the APD-DPS partnership would last, but hoped to keep troopers in town until APD could fill its open positions. As of Wednesday, the department is down about 500 officers, according to the Austin Police Association. Filling those positions is likely to take years.
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Early Wednesday, council members Vanessa Fuentes of District 2 and Zohaib "Zo" Qadri of District 9 called for an end to the partnership.
"This is completely unacceptable and does not align with our values as a community," Fuentes tweeted in response to FOX 7’s story on the Texas DPS trooper pulling a gun on a 10-year-old. "It is high time to end the DPS partnership."
Responding to the same story, Qadri said there was "0 justification" for the trooper’s actions.
"Imagine if the story had ended with a trigger happy DPS trooper. Had that been the case, we all would be talking about the death of a 10 year old at the hands of DPS this morning," Qadri said. "I can only speak for myself, but this partnership needs to end."
The suspension, meanwhile, has been met with fierce criticism from opponents who accused public officials of folding under pressure from anti-police activist groups like the Austin Justice Coalition.
The Austin Police Association slammed the decision as "absolutely unconscionable."
"Instead of asking DPS to look into the actions of a specific Trooper, the City allowed a one-sided, inflammatory, poorly researched news story, one purely intended to get clicks, to be treated as truth and fact," APA said in a statement.
"This decision is just another in a long line of decisions that demonstrate to the hardworking men and women of the APD and the law-abiding citizens of Austin that public safety is not a priority in this City."
Prominent Austin attorney Adam Loewy accused the mayor of caving to "a very small group of anti-police activists."
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"The City of Austin is again stuck with an understaffed … police department," he said, warning that there will be "serious consequences to public safety due to this cowardly decision."
Council Member Mackenzie Kelly called the suspension "a disheartening setback for the residents of Austin."
Charley Wilkison, executive director of the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas (CLEAT), questioned whether Austin was planning to hire "500-plus replacement officers since they DEFUNDED their police department."
"Oh, OK, so this is just another thread in the off-again, on-again political breakup texts," he said.
The bipartisan group "Save Austin Now" said the suspension will have "immediate and tragic consequences for public safety."
"This is a victory for police abolitionists and criminals and a major setback for law abiding citizens and families who only wish to live in a safe city," Save Austin Now co-founders Matt Mackowiak and Cleo Petricek said in a statement.
Dennis Farris of the Austin Retired Officers Association accused the mayor of "caving like a cheap suit" to the "25 activists in this city who seem, for some reason, to have run everything that’s going on in this city and has led to the demoralization of the Austin Police Department."
Later Wednesday, KXAN reported that it had been invited by DPS to view the video of the troopers’ interaction with the 10-year-old boy that led to the suspension.
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The mayor’s office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
