AUSTIN (KXAN) — Monday’s Austin Public Safety Commission meeting gave a deeper look at how Austin Police Department is handling some racial issues.
Among other things, the commission heard more on a December report examining racial inequities within the Austin Police Department.
The report rehashed research done last spring and arrived at some familiar conclusions. It supported findings of a study the city commissioned last year, that there are disparities when it comes to how officers interact with people, based on their race.
The report showed officers go into higher-crime neighborhoods more afraid than they might be in other neighborhoods, and that in those places, race has an impact on how likely they are to arrest or use force on someone.
Data analyzed in the report showed that more severe force is disproportionately used on African Americans.
Within the department, African American employees interviewed were less satisfied with workplace culture than other races. The audit also found women were generally less satisfied than men, pointing to possible disparities in how employees are treated within the department.
Public safety commissioners said before APD can bring in more cadets for the next training academy, these issues must be addressed.
“I feel like we’ve gotten a little stuck in this wormhole of, ‘We want a new cadet class, but we need the changes to happen, we can’t get the changes to happen, we have timelines,’ and I just struggle,” said Public Safety Commissioner Kathleen Hausenfluck.
The department says it’s already in the process of making changes.
“We have put our cadet instructors through Excellence in Training workshops, we’ve put them through Beyond Diversity training, leadership has gone through Undoing Racism, so we have been doing things,” said APD Assistant Chief Troy Gay.
Gay continued, “We’ve constantly been working toward moving the academy forward, but any instituton of higher learning is a continuous process. It’s not like a one and done, so we are consdtantly working to improve the Academy.”
The department plans to write up and put an “equity action plan” in place in the next several weeks.
Public safety commissioners also discussed another report, published in November, on racial profiling by APD and possible recommendations for Austin City Council.
They voted unanimously to recommend that city council ban police from doing discretionary searches when they smell marijuana or suspect small amounts of drugs, because those searches disproportionately impact minorities. If council moves forward with that recommendation, cases that involve those types of searches would not be referred to the district attorney.
The commission also gave feedback about the progress on a resolution to identify and improve on gaps for Austin’s first responders.
Each quarter, the commission gets an update from one of the city’s major public safety departments, and Monday was Austin Fire Department’s turn.
The commission held its February meeting from 3 to 5 p.m. It can be viewed live here.
KXAN will add to this report with updates from the meeting.
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