A few Austinites, including members of the city’s Public Safety Commission, expressed frustration Monday evening as they reviewed a recent report detailing racial disparities in Austin police stops and called on city leaders to do more to correct the disparities.
A city report released last week found that Austin police stop people who are black and Hispanic at rates disproportionately higher than the percentage of the population they make up. Previous Austin police racial profiling reports had similar findings.
“These people want to sit down at a table with us, write down some ideas, and then do absolutely nothing with it,” said Chas Moore, founder of the criminal justice reform group Austin Justice Coalition, during Monday’s meeting of the Public Safety Commission. “I really don’t know what else to say. … As much as things change, as you can see, they remain the same.”
Moore also noted that when the Austin City Council directed the Austin Police Department to stop enforcing low-level marijuana possession laws, Austin Police Chief Brian Manley told reporters the next day that officers would continue citing and arresting people for such offenses. The council doesn’t have the power to decriminalize state laws, Manley said.
Such a change could have reduced Austin’s racial disparities in ticketing and arrests, Moore said. Of 432 marijuana citations issued in 2019, 201 were issued to Hispanics and 163 to African Americans, making up 84% of all citations, Austin police data shows.
Commissioner Rebecca Webber also said she was disappointed by Manley’s statement.
“Chief Manley basically stuck his middle finger at City Council and said, ‘I’m going to keep doing it the way we’ve been doing it,’” Webber said.
At Monday’s meeting, Assistant Chief Troy Gay said both he and Manley have acknowledged the racial disparities in Austin police stops, and police officials have taken steps to reduce them.
Gay pointed out that the city’s report did not take 2019 data into account, which could show significant improvements. An analysis of racial disparities last year has not been released yet.
Austin police drastically reduced the number of people arrested on misdemeanor charges that were eligible for a citation, according to Austin police statistics from the first half of 2019. In 2018, the Austin City Council called on police to end most discretionary arrests, which happen when police decide to arrest someone for misdemeanors punishable by either a trip to jail or a ticket.
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