Monday, May 19, 2025, 2 p.m. (Austin time), Austin City Hall
Committee: Public Safety Committee
0:04 Good afternoon, everybody. Um, I will now call the public safety committee to order.
0:08 It is May 19th at 2:03 pm um, and this is a special called meeting of the public safety committee.
0:16 We are at City Hall, located at 3 0 1 west second street, Austin, texas, and we have a quorum
0:22 present, uh, vice chair lane and Council Member uchin, uh, not present are Mayor Watson and Council Member
0:29 ri uh, and I will turn it over to our folks to see if we have any public
0:33 communication. No, we have no public communication.
0:39 Um, so, uh, now we need to approve the minutes from our public safety committee on April 7th, 2025.
0:45 I'll accept a motion to approve those minutes made by Council Member uchin, seconded by Council Member lane.
0:52 Uh, without objection, the minutes are approved.
0:54 Um, colleagues, now we have, our second item is a briefing.
0:58 Um, uh, the committee will not take up item number two, which is a briefing on reexamining use
1:02 of force by the Austin police department.
1:04 Uh, I believe we have chief chief davis here with us.
1:07 Um, and dr. Robin engel, a senior research scientist, um, uh, at the, at ohio state university, the
1:16 ohio state, ohio state university, the ohio state.
1:18 Um, and if we want, um, we'll just, uh, we'll let them get into the presentation and pull
1:22 up our questions after.
1:23 No, you you're fine.
1:24 Right here. Thank you.
1:25 Thank you. Uh, committee chair and council members.
1:28 Appreciate your time here.
1:29 I think this is a excellent opportunity to kind of look at our, uh, use of force, our
1:33 overview. Um, you know, one of the things when a new chief comes in is you want to
1:35 kind of bring people in to take a look at what you have.
1:38 And, um, robin, I've worked with her in dr.
1:41 Engle in cincinnati, and she is an expert in many things, including, uh, police use of force.
1:47 So she is a, a excellent person to come in here, and I think you're gonna enjoy her,
1:51 her presentation about use of force and where we are in the Austin police department.
1:55 Okay. Thank you, chief.
1:57 I appreciate, um, the introduction.
2:00 And yes, it is the ohio state university.
2:02 Um, although, apologies, apologies.
2:04 I know. No, no, that's fine.
2:06 Um, I did learn in, uh, new employee orientation that the stands for tradition honor and excellence, and
2:12 I've been told to repeat that.
2:14 So I've done my work here.
2:15 One of my colleagues calls me the José quez, so I'm assuming that's why now, <laugh>.
2:20 Exactly. Tradition, honor and excellence.
2:23 Um, so thank you so much, uh, for having me today.
2:26 Uh, it, it's, um, I think that the chief said it best is that when you come into
2:31 a new department, one of the things that you really wanna very understand right from the onset is
2:37 what your highest risk is.
2:39 And for the Austin police department and police departments across the country, one of the highest risks is
2:44 use of force. And that risk is for officers as well as the public, right.
2:49 And we wanna think about best ways that we can reduce that risk, and that we can reduce
2:55 officer injury and citizen injury, and make police citizen encounters safer for all.
3:00 And so when we do that, we really need to take a holistic look at a lot of
3:04 different components, including things like the, uh, the policy of the police department, the procedures that are used,
3:11 the accountability and, uh, oversight mechanisms that are present, um, but also first line supervision and officer training.
3:21 There's, there's so many things that are captured in this encounter that happens oftentimes in such quick time,
3:28 right in seconds can, can result, um, in a use of force.
3:32 And so we want to really best understand holistically everything that the Austin police department is doing to
3:38 try to mitigate that risk.
3:39 Um, and so chief davis asked me to come in and take a look at all of those,
3:44 um, components. Um, and when I first, uh, brought some information, um, back to her, she asked, um,
3:50 that I also brief assistant city manager, um, eddie garcia, who I believe is here with us today
3:56 as well. Um, and of course, um, the assistant city manager is no stranger to these issues in
4:02 policing. Um, and also has done a very good job, um, in prior departments.
4:06 Uh, I knew, um, assistant chief, uh, or assistant city manager, uh, garcia, when he was the chief
4:13 in san José and also in dallas, uh, and make sure that these agencies, again, are, are safe
4:18 and well for the officers, but also for the public that they serve.
4:22 So I appreciate the opportunities, um, from everyone.
4:25 Uh, so with that, I do have a presentation for you with some of my initial findings and
4:30 what we'll be doing moving forward.
4:32 I understand that you've received a, a copy of, of some of this material, and I'd like to
4:37 just take this opportunity to explain to you what you're seeing in that powerpoint presentation.
4:42 So with that, I'm gonna try to make sure that this works.
4:45 It does. Um, what I'll be presenting to you today is a review of, uh, just a, an
4:52 an assessment of what I've done so far.
4:54 Um, my summary findings, a series of recommendations that I gave to chief davis now a couple of
5:00 months ago. And she has already executed many of these, and we'll talk about that.
5:04 Um, and as part of that is a, what we're calling a use of force task force, that
5:09 task force is made up of individuals within the Austin police department, um, myself and, and some others.
5:14 And we'll talk all about that and the updates that we have to bring to your attention today.
5:19 So with that, um, I think probably best, um, given that this is a public hearing, that I'll
5:24 take questions at the end.
5:27 Um, but if you do have a moment where something's not clear, um, you know, obviously feel free
5:32 to, to interrupt and and I'll answer those questions.
5:36 So first with the review, uh, I am a researcher by training.
5:41 I've been doing this for nearly 30 years now.
5:43 I work with dozens of agencies across the country and around the world.
5:48 And one of the things that I always do is I never just look at data.
5:51 I'm trained as a social scientist trained in research, but I also know that the data doesn't tell
5:56 you everything that you need to know.
5:57 In fact, oftentimes it tells you just enough, uh, to be dangerous.
6:02 And you really have to understand what the dynamics look like on the ground.
6:07 So one of the first things I did, uh, when the chief asked me to come, is to
6:11 do a series of informal interviews, group meetings with the, uh, Austin police department with the sworn and
6:17 professional staff, including the chief, uh, chief of staff, robin henderson, who's here with us today.
6:22 Um, all of the assistant chiefs that were in place at that time, uh, when I first came,
6:27 uh, in December, the force review unit, the fru commander, uh, cruz, uh, and her staff.
6:35 I also met with siu, which is a special investigations unit, um, internal affairs, their commanders and staff.
6:42 The training commander at the time, actually, uh, is now an assistant chief who's co-chairing, uh, this work
6:49 with me. And that's, uh, Mike chancellor, who's seated right behind me, I believe.
6:54 Thank you. Uh, but I had an opportunity to meet with him and his, uh, at the time,
6:59 his staff in training, and also with the research and planning unit staff.
7:04 Um, that unit is now, uh, overseen by chief mayors harold, who is also here with us today.
7:11 Uh, chief harold, um, has been really instrumental in helping, uh, assist with all of the data, uh,
7:16 issues that I'm gonna be bringing to your attention.
7:19 So that was my first step.
7:21 Um, I also met, um, with, uh, director, uh, gail mccann, um, from the office of police oversight,
7:29 uh, the opo and some of her staff as well.
7:32 They are now involved directly in this work with a seat at the table on our use of
7:37 force task force. So this is a partnership, uh, where we're really working together, again, to mitigate risk
7:42 for our officers and for our public.
7:47 I also decided, you know what?
7:49 I need to go out there and see what's happening.
7:51 So I rode, uh, multiple shifts, uh, and opportunities to ride in george sector in particular, up and
7:57 down sixth street. In part, the reason for that selection was because, uh, a large proportion of the
8:03 use of force incidents happened, uh, with that sector and in, uh, sixth street corridor in particular.
8:09 So I had an opportunity to spend some time with the officers that are assigned there and actually
8:14 do observations in the field.
8:16 I reviewed a series of documents, a lot of documents, as matter of fact.
8:20 Um, looking at your, uh, the Austin police department's response to resistance reports from 2019 to 2022, your,
8:28 uh, force review unit, monthly reports, opo memos, I looked back, uh, five years at City Council resolutions
8:35 related to the use of force.
8:37 I also consulted with previous external reports, including the parole report, uh, that looked specifically at use of
8:44 force at the time, uh, for the Austin police department, and also had an opportunity to, uh, have
8:51 some selected body cam showed to me footage, um, but also randomly selected some use of force incidents
8:57 to review. And then finally, and this was the largest chunk of my work, um, I thought it
9:02 would be the smallest.
9:03 It turned out to be the largest.
9:04 And one of the reasons why I'm here today is the data review, working with the Austin police
9:09 department, uh, analyst, uh, a number of different analysts to help me understand how data is collected and
9:16 reported to the public.
9:18 We examined previous data reports and analyses, and also conducted new analyses to make sure that there was
9:24 consistency and my summary findings.
9:28 Then, um, unfortunately, I did find a number of inconsistencies across the Austin police department and all aspects
9:35 of use of force, including reporting, accountability and oversight mechanisms, um, and training.
9:41 Now, that might come as a little bit, uh, you know, uh, gut wrenching, um, particularly for members
9:47 of the public to hear that there are inconsistencies across the agency.
9:50 But I wanna assure you that in truth, that's, uh, there are inconsistencies in police departments in these
9:56 areas throughout the country.
9:58 And one of the things that I do, um, especially with progressive chiefs, um, like chief davis, is
10:03 to come in and figure out how do we identify what those gaps are and what can we
10:07 do about them? Because again, there's never going to be one perfect system, uh, but we can absolutely
10:13 work together to reduce risk.
10:14 And, uh, cleaning up some of these inconsistencies is, is part of that overall process.
10:20 We're really looking for continuous improvement over time.
10:23 And, uh, I'm, I'm hopeful and optimistic, uh, that the Austin police department is on the right path
10:29 for this. Um, having said that, there are significant issues in particular with the data reporting, the reliability,
10:36 and the validity of the data that's available, statistical analysis that have been conducted for, uh, for the
10:42 police department, um, and the reports that have been issued.
10:45 And I have found a number of errors, um, and other things that we wanna bring to your
10:49 attention, specifically because the counting of the use of force is how you establish external credibility and legitimacy
10:58 with your public. And we need to make sure that we get this right.
11:01 Uh, and so this is, uh, another key part of what I'll be working on moving forward.
11:08 And as part of that, I found, um, interesting, uh, a lot of agencies that I go in,
11:13 I often see, um, an underreporting of use of force.
11:17 Um, here I've, I've discovered that there's potentially, uh, an overreporting of use of force incidents.
11:23 Now, um, there's a lot of reasons for this, um, and we need to really think through how
11:28 that data is pulled together, presented, analyzed, and pushed back out to the public.
11:32 And so I'll get into greater detail here in a moment, but these are the summary findings that
11:36 I brought to chief davis, which is why she asked me to then, uh, brief, um, uh, you
11:42 folks here today. So, um, just to level set, um, these numbers have changed, um, just in the
11:53 course of my examination multiple times.
11:56 So the fact that we have trouble just counting the number of use of force incidents, um, in,
12:02 in a particular time period has been a challenge.
12:04 And I'll explain why in a moment.
12:05 But we believe that these numbers are accurate to date.
12:10 This is for last year, 2024, the number of u the number of subjects, individual subjects who had