Police oversight authority intensifies investigations into complaints from the public: APD suspended only one officer last year – News

Interim Police Chief Robin Henderson (Photo by Jana Birchum)

After a month-long hiatus, the city resumed negotiations with the Austin Police Association today, June 6, on a long-term labor contract. The contract will determine how much Austin police officers will earn and will address some details about police oversight.

That the contract will only address some of the details of oversight rather than outlining the entire framework is a pretty big difference from the city’s contract negotiations with APA over the past 20 years. Previously, the city’s entire oversight system was spelled out in the contract – a dynamic that gave the police union great power over police accountability.

But the passage of the Austin Police Oversight Act, a city ordinance establishing a system of civilian police oversight that voters overwhelmingly approved a year ago, has completely upended that dynamic. Much of the foundation of a robust, transparent police oversight system would be codified in local law rather than subject to negotiations in a labor contract — meaning the police union has much less ability to negotiate away certain oversight provisions. The current negotiation period is the first since voters approved the Oversight Act, and at this point, the City Council, City Manager TC Broadnax and his subordinates on the city’s labor relations team have all signaled that they intend to respect the will of voters by negotiating a labor contract that complies with the Oversight Act.

While that process plays out, the Office of Police Oversight (OPO) — the city agency tasked with conducting police oversight — recently made progress in establishing the oversight system required by the Oversight Act. In October, they began conducting “preliminary reviews” of complaints submitted to the office by community members about officer misconduct — something police oversight advocates have been pushing for since the APA successfully blocked the OPO from doing so in 2022.

Earlier this year, OPO hired a supervisor for the agency’s complaints division, two complaints investigators and three complaints specialists. Since then, an OPO spokesperson said via email, the complaints team has established a process whereby it “independently reviews every complaint submitted to the office” and flags potential policy violations. If one is discovered, a “preliminary investigation” of the complaint is initiated. This includes conducting in-depth interviews with the complainant and witnesses about the allegations and gathering evidence to support the allegations.

“The gap in complaints being investigated still speaks to an OPO that does not investigate all complaints in accordance with the law.”– Chris Harris, President of Equity Action

The evidence gathering was possible because OPO finally gained “direct and unfettered access” to APD’s databases, which store use-of-force data, video footage from body-worn and dashboard cameras and various other investigative records, the spokesman said. OPO had been denied such access for years, and this level of independent authority, which police oversight advocates have seen as key to creating a robust, comprehensive system of civilian oversight, is a key factor.

Available data on how recent policy changes at OPO have affected the agency’s work do not paint a clear picture. Data shared at the February meeting of the Police Oversight Implementation Working Group shows that between October and December, OPO was contacted 208 times by community members; 180 contacts were complaints against officers and 23 were commendations (praise).

OPO had not investigated more than 30% of complaints filed over the three-month period, although in previous years OPO had conducted pre-investigations for all complaints. The spokesperson said this was because “complaints are pre-investigated on an ongoing basis,” so the number of complaints OPO receives in a month may not match the number of complaints investigated in the same month. Holidays in the city also played a role, the spokesperson said.

During the three-month period covered by the data, only six complaints were referred to the Austin Police Department’s Internal Affairs Division for full investigation. In 2021, civilian investigators referred 18 complaints per month to APD for investigation (this year, the OPO also received about twice as many contacts from community members per month).

Ultimately, the APD decides whether complaints should be fully investigated; during the first three months of 2024, they investigated all complaints referred to them by the OPO. Since January, the spokesperson said, the OPO has made six disciplinary recommendations to Robin Henderson, Austin’s interim police chief. It’s unclear whether Henderson has acted on any of them—since she was named interim chief on Aug. 31, Henderson has suspended only one officer (former APD Chief Joseph Chacon suspended 10 officers in the first eight months of his tenure as interim chief).

Chris Harris, president of Equity Action, the legal organization that authored the Oversight Act, said the numbers appear to show the city is failing to provide the system of robust police oversight that voters demanded. “The gap in complaints under review still speaks to the fact that the OPO is not investigating all complaints as required by law,” Harris said of the OPO’s offered explanation for the discrepancy.

Harris says looking at each such complaint from a civilian’s perspective is critical to OPO’s core function. For one, it ensures that community members concerned about officer misconduct are heard and that actual policy violations are corrected — but thoroughly investigating all complaints also puts OPO in a better position to recommend APD policy changes aimed at improving officer interactions with the community.

OPO is expected to present new data on complaints and investigations at the next meeting of the Police Oversight Implementation Working Group, scheduled for June 13.