AUSTIN, Texas — As the number of vacancies within the Austin Police Department (APD) have grown and response times have worsened in recent years, Austin Police Association (APA) President Michael Bullock wants to put a spotlight on how it's affecting the city.
On Feb. 17, Bullock took to social media to discuss the staffing crisis, pointing to an incident where an entire area in East Austin went unpatrolled for two hours. A couple of days earlier, on Feb. 15, he posted about the lack of officers available to answer 911 calls.
Two incidents in one week, but examples Bullock said have become much more frequent.
"We just don't have the manpower, we don't have the resources to be able to divert officers away from patrol," Bullock said.
Bullock said the department has been forced to rearrange itself, forcing police units to be cut, and pulling detectives and officers from specialized units to backfill patrol duties, "basically pulling double duty from working their assigned cases and having to work patrol."
APD has more than 350 vacancies. According to Bullock, the department is about 600 officers short from where it needs to be.
Bullock said the immediate fix is adding more officers.
"We're not trying to sound the alarms for people, but we think people deserve to know," Bullock said. "If we were fully staffed, we would have somewhere around, you know, 12 to 14 officers that are available in most sectors during that time. But lately we're dealing with having maybe seven or eight that are available."
However, the problem is attracting recruits and the prolonged stalemate between the APA and the City of Austin in trying to negotiating a long-term labor contract. Earlier this month, Austin leaders signed off on extending a stopgap measure for police officers to maintain pay and benefits through March 2025.
Bullock has stated that other issues need to be addressed before the union can be brought back to the table.