Austin’s police monitor takes heat for doing her job
Only in Austin!
Margo Frasier, in her first review of a police shooting since she became Austin police monitor, strongly criticized certain actions of officers and raised concerns about a series of communication failures among 911 operators minutes before an officer wounded an armed man. (AAS)
In trying to decipher what is the real “meat” of this poorly written article, we can conclude a few facts about a recent memorandum produced by the Austin Police Monitor:
- Disturbed man fights with girlfriend, threatens suicide
- Fires gun and flees scene in vehicle
- Police take chase
- Disturbed man calls 911 several times while being chased by police.
- 911 dispatchers transfer call to hostage negotiators voice mail
- 911 dispatchers do not inform each other of an ongoing chase
- 911 dispatchers do not notify chasing officers their target is dialing 911
So, what happened? The disturbed man eventually gets stopped by deflation strips and gets out of the car to fire shots in the air so police could should him. The expected outcome as soon as the first police officer radioed in “Suicide by cop” was on the schedule.
Here’s where the criticism of the police department comes in. The 911 operators had a complete failure of communication amongst themselves. Why was there not a hostage negotiator “on call” that was reachable by 911 operators? Why would a 911 operator transfer a call to someone’s voicemail? They Mayberry level of competence and training in the Austin Police Department deserves the criticism it gets.
From requiring SWAT members to be on call 24/7, to clearly not having enough presence on East 6th Street so people get shot or beat the hell up while visiting the city’s tourist attractions this police department deserves criticism. To hear Chief Acevedo balk at even the slightest inference that there is room for improvement is an egotistical and extreme disservice to the men and women that are doing a good job for the police department.
The chief is so all fired focused on no refusal drink and drive, maybe he should a.) start with his own officers on that one and b.) spend some of the money setting up these drinking and driving stings to train his officers on how to be police officers and staff.