AUSTIN (KXAN) — About 8 months ago, the Austin Police Department (APD) launched an initiative to beef up downtown patrols. Now, Lt. Christopher Juusola, the operations lieutenant for the Downtown Area Command (DTAC), says the program has had an “immediate positive impact.”
The initiative was born from downtown stakeholder complaints primarily related to property crime and other “quality of life” issues.
“The vast majority of crimes in DTAC dropped compared to the year(s) prior,” Juusola said. “Crimes against person were slightly lower and crimes against property was significantly lower.”
The below slideshow images detail APD data comparing crime year-to-year and map out the part of downtown – George Sector – that this data refers to.
The increased patrols – called the “Initiative Shift” – function with an existing DTAC shift working earlier in the weekend and overtime officers working later in the week.
Patrol numbers downtown – and across the city – have dwindled as the police department continues to face a staffing shortage. According to the latest numbers from the Austin Police Association, there are currently 328 officer vacancies.
The Initiative Shift, Juusola said, allows officers to proactively patrol and participate in other preventative efforts and respond to downtown crime reports more quickly. He said without this, officers would have to focus solely on responding to calls for service.
“The effects of an understaffed police department – increased response time, decreased community policing and decreased response to certain types of incidents – seen in other sectors would likely result from removing the additional officers from the DTAC Initiative Shift,” Juusola said.
Juusola said he believes the initiative, even though it functions via officer overtime, is sustainable, and he doesn’t believe the resource allocation will change anytime soon. However, he noted that this project came about under Interim Assistant City Manager Bruce Mills, and the city will have a new assistant city manager soon.
He added that it is possible the Initiative Shift could expand to other entertainment areas like Sixth Street east of I-35 or the Domain, but that APD would need direction from executives to do so.
KXAN is speaking with downtown business owners to get their thoughts on the increased patrols. Check back for updates.
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