AUSTIN, Texas — Austin Police Department officials should work to better understand a spike in force encounters while arrests simultaneously decreased, modify certain use-of-force policies and enhance supervisor review of officer performance, according to an outside consultant hired by the city.
The 179-page report from Kroll Consulting came more than two years after city council members passed a resolution calling for the in-depth study following concerns about internal racism in the department that they feared spilled onto the street.
The KVUE Defenders have been for months chronicling calls for police reform and the City's response. Much of those calls intensified after the April 2020 shooting of Michael Ramos in Austin and George Floyd's murder in Minneapolis.
According to the report released Tuesday, the firm dove deeply into a snap-shot of use of force cases in 2019.
It said that although the overwhelming majority of cases were appropriate, an analysis of 112 incidents showed that some officers unnecessarily escalated several encounters and that they were too quick to handcuff citizens without explaining why they were being stopped.
Some residents were then charged with resisting arrest unnecessarily and inappropriately, the report said. It also said that some supervisors did not appropriately review those incidents.
The report also said that of those incidents, "stop and frisk is employed aggressively in Austin. In the incidents reviewed, most officers officially justify stop and frisk by claiming 'my/officer' safety without articulating reasonable suspicion that criminal activity was afoot."
It added that, "when individuals tried to resist 'arrest' by hiding their arms and hands under their body, the encounters often escalated with officers using punches or other strikes to enforce compliance."
Police Chief Joe Chacon said that he is still reviewing recommendations and prioritizing "recommendations that better inform updates to APD policies and practices to evolve how we meet our community's public safety needs, recruit and retain a diverse and well-trained force and provide greater transparency with improved data collection processes."
The report released Tuesday was the second part of the study. The first piece, released in April, evaluated issues related to the police training academy curriculum.
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