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A new report shows that racial profiling continues to be a problem for the Austin Police Department, despite ongoing efforts to address disparities in stops, searches and arrests.
APD motor vehicle stop data from 2019 reveals that Black people are still the most overrepresented racial or ethnic group being stopped by police in Austin.
According to the report, which was jointly published by the city's office of police oversight, office of innovation and equity office on Monday, Black people make up 8% of Austin's voting age population but experienced 14% of motor vehicle stops, 25% of stops resulting in searchers and 25% of stops resulting in arrests.
Latino residents were also overrepresented in motor vehicle stops, searches and arrests compared to their share of the local population, while Asian and white residents were underrepresented.
"APD's data continues to show that disproportionality in traffic stops exists and adversely impacts Black and Brown community members," OPO Director Farah Muscadin said in a statement.
The data also revealed geographic disparities in warnings, field observations and arrests. Warnings and field observations were most concentrated on the west side of Austin, while arrests were most concentrated on the east side.
(Joint Report: APD's 2019 Racial Profiling Data)
Although there were some modest improvements since 2018, including a 1% decline in the overrepresentation of Black people in motor vehicle stops, other gaps widened.
For example, Black people were three times more likely to be searched than white people and the only racial or ethnic groups to receive more high-discretion searches than low-discretion searches.
High-discretion searches can only be conducted when there is consent, probable cause or contraband present, according to the report. Low-discretion searches, on the other hand, occur when policy requires an officer to conduct a search, such as due to an arrest or a vehicle being towed.
Last year, Black people received 58% of high-discretion searches compared to 42% of low-discretion searches. This disparity grew nearly 8% since 2018.
APD Chief Brian Manley said that his department is working toward reducing these disparities.
"Although it is a slight improvement, there is an improvement in some areas," he said at a public safety committee meeting on Monday. "I think we're headed in the right direction."
The report also included recommendations for how APD can ensure equity in policing.
Chief Equity Officer Brion Oaks said the department needs to acknowledge that their efforts to eliminate racial disparities have not worked, engage the community in creating a plan to do better, commit to achieving the benchmarks set out in that plan and improve how it trains officers.
"This report has established firmly how systemic racism manifests itself in policing and I hope it will serve as a catalyst for our community and city leaders to respond courageously in the pursuit of the fair administration of justice for our city," Oaks said in a statement.
The report analyzes data from 2019, before this year's protests against police violence and racism, and its publication follows myriad efforts to reform police.
Last December, after an anonymous complaint was filed with the OPO accusing an assistant police chief of using racist epithets and derogatory language, Austin City Council ordered a third-party investigation of APD's training, recruiting and promotion practices; use of force incident reports; and interactions with the public, including searches, arrests and citations.
More recently, council voted in August to cut approximately $20 million—or about 5%—of APD's budget and set aside an additional $130 million into two transitional funds, which allowed several of APD's traditional duties to continue while officials decide which ones to move out from under police oversight.
Members also canceled three planned cadet classes, citing concerns about the training academy's curriculum.
Manley said the budget cuts and canceled cadet classes have led to staffing shortages at the Monday meeting.
APD currently has 1,809 sworn officers and 45 vacancies. In the last couple of months, its attrition rate has spiked to 15%, about double what the department typically sees from retirements, resignations and terminations, he said.
Without any upcoming cadet classes, and assuming this attrition rate continues at its current level, Manley predicts the department will see an increasing number of vacancies—and related challenges staffing its patrol positions.
"We're doing what we can with what we have," he said.
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Popular
(Paxton Smith/Instagram)
Paxton Smith’s 2021 valedictory speech at Lake Highlands High School in Dallas wasn’t the same speech she had previously shared with school administrators. She dropped the approved speech and made a case for women’s reproductive rights after lawmakers passed the Texas "Heartbeat Bill.”
Her advocacy made news on NPR, YouTubeTV and in The Guardian. Just over a year later, the “war on (women’s) rights” she forewarned has come to a head as the U.S. Supreme Court voted Friday morning to overturn Roe v. Wade, ending constitutional protection for abortion access.
“It is up to the people to show up and show the courts and the politicians that we won’t sit back and let this happen,” Smith told Austonia Friday morning. “We will show up, we will fight back. Before, we were scared of them, now they should be scared of us.”
Now a University of Texas sophomore and abortion rights activist, 19-year-old Smith said she wanted to give the same speech in the “the most public way possible” to reach “as many people as possible who don't agree that I deserve this right.”
However, she says the response was “actually overwhelmingly positive” and supportive of her cause. According to a recent UT poll, 78% of Texas voters support abortion access in most cases.
The speech opened up further opportunities for activism: she advocated for reproductive rights at the International Forum on Human Rights in Geneva, interviewed with Variety magazine and spoke to tens of thousands at Austin’s Bans Off Our Bodies protest at the Texas Capitol in May.
Smith also serves on the board of directors for the Women’s Reproductive Rights Assistance Project, a national nonprofit organization that helps fund abortions or medication abortion—like Plan C pills—in all 50 states. Most recently, Smith has been attending protests in Washington, D.C. leading up to the ruling.
“This is land of the free. This is where you get to choose how you live your life,” Smith said. “Overturning Roe v. Wade violates everything that we have come to believe about what it means to live in this country. I think a lot of people aren't willing to accept that this is a human right that is most likely just going to be gone for over half of the country within the next couple of weeks.”
Bracing for the next steps, Smith gave some tips for supporters:
- Find a protest to attend.
- “I would say invite somebody to go to those protests with you, invite a couple of friends, invite people into the movement,” Smith said.
- Talk about the issue on social media—use the platform you have.
- “Have these kinds of conversations where people can just talk about their fears and then find ways to go and advocate for yourself,” Smith said.
- Volunteer at a nonprofit near you.
“I feel like a lot of the reason things have gotten as bad as they have within the abortion rights world is that people are not making a scene, not protesting, not putting the effort into ensuring that the government doesn't take away this right,” Smith said. “I want to emphasize that if you're not doing anything, don't expect the best scenario, expect the worst because that's the direction that we're going in.”
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(Council Member Chito Vela/Twitter)
The U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that guaranteed a constitutional right to an abortion, Friday morning. Moments later, Austin City Council set a special meeting for next month to pass a resolution aimed at decriminalizing abortion.
The GRACE Act, which stands for guarding the right to abortion care for everyone, is a twofold plan submitted by council member Jose “Chito” Vela. It recommends that city funds shouldn’t be used to surveil, catalog, report or investigate abortions. It also recommends that police make investigating abortion their lowest priority.
Council Member Vanessa Fuentes, who co-sponsored the resolution along with council members Paige Ellis, Kathie Tovo and Mayor Steve Adler, said the importance of the GRACE Act cannot be overstated.
“By introducing this resolution during a special session, City Council is doubling down on fighting back for reproductive health,” Fuentes said. “Items like the GRACE Act will promote essential healthcare while enabling individuals to exercise their bodily freedom.”
The act takes an approach similar to when former council member Greg Casar moved to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana. Ultimately, state law doesn't allow city officials to order police chiefs to adopt specific enforcement policies so the resolution would be a request to Police Chief Joe Chacon. In May, Politico reported that Vela is having "ongoing conversations" with Chacon about the proposal.
Austonia contacted Attorney General Ken Paxton for comment on the GRACE Act but did not hear back by time of publication. On Friday, Paxton celebrated the overturning of Roe and announced an annual office holiday on June 24 in recognition of the high court's decision.
In a press release, Vela said the Texas state government has a history of overturning municipal protections of human rights. Thirty days after the Supreme Court’s ruling, Texas will ban all abortions, with exceptions only to save the life of a pregnant patient or prevent “substantial impairment of major bodily function.”
Still, Vela expressed hope for the GRACE Act’s longevity. Council’s special meeting on it is set for the week of July 18.
“We know this resolution is legally sound, and Austin is not alone in this fight,” Vela said. “We are working with several other cities who are equally horrified by the prospect of an abortion ban and want to do everything they can to protect their residents.”
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