Gov. Greg Abbott considering legislation to put Austin police under state control after budget cut

If passed, the legislative proposal could consolidate Austin's police department under the Texas Department of Public Safety.

by Jolie McCullough Sept. 3, 2020 Updated: 7:16 PM


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Austin police officers gathered on Interstate 35 to remove protesters demonstrating against police brutality from the highway in May. Gov. Greg Abbott and other state leaders have criticized Austin officials' decision to cut police department funding. Credit: Miguel Gutierrez Jr./The Texas Tribune
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Gov. Greg Abbott is considering a legislative proposal that, if passed, would put the control of the Austin Police Department under state authority.

Texas’ governor tweeted Thursday that he was looking at a strategy that would stop city officials’ efforts to shift resources away from police departments and into other social services. Austin became the first Texas city to approve cutting its police budget last month as calls rise to “defund police” during a revived movement against police brutality and racial injustice.

“This proposal for the state to takeover the Austin Police Department is one strategy I'm looking at,” Abbott tweeted in response to an article from Reform Austin. “We can't let Austin's defunding & disrespect for law enforcement to endanger the public & invite chaos like in Portland and Seattle.”


The cities have experienced months of sometimes violent protests and controversial intervention of federal agents. In Portland, protesters and counter-protesters clashed after a President Donald Trump rally last month, and a member of a far-right political organization was fatally shot.

The potential legislation, sent last week to Abbott by former Texas House members and parliamentarians Terry Keel and Ron Wilson, would allow for a city with a population over 1 million and less than two police officers per 1,000 residents — a bucket Austin falls into — to have its police force consolidated with the Texas Department of Public Safety. The state’s law enforcement branch would take over the local police department and form a new entity if the governor decided there were “insufficient municipal resources being appropriated for public safety needs,” according to a copy of the letter obtained by The Texas Tribune.

The director of DPS would control operations of the new department, and the state’s Public Safety Commission, a five-member board that oversees DPS and is appointed by the governor, would decide its budget, said Keel, who is also a former Travis County sheriff. The money would then be taken from state sales revenue taxes usually sent to the city.

"That letter basically is a roadmap to how the Legislature can address the problem in Austin," Keel told the Tribune last week. "Because Austin opened the door to the Legislature doing that, by defunding the police and by creating a public safety crisis."

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Since the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis sparked protests across the nation, calls for cities to spend less money on policing and more on other social services like health care and housing programs have gained large-scale traction. Floyd was a Black man who died after a white police officer knelt on his neck during an arrest past the point when he lost consciousness.

In Austin, police criticism was heightened in April after an officer shot and killed Mike Ramos, an unarmed Black and Hispanic man who was driving away from police. During protests in May spurred by Ramos' and Floyd's deaths, two nonviolent protesters — a Black man and Hispanic boy — were seriously injured after being hit in the head with police bean bag rounds.

Although calls to remove the police chief went unanswered, the progressive City Council in June issued a vote of no confidence in police leadership to make changes to end police violence against people of color, and, last month, cut the department's budget.

The 2021 Austin budget would immediately cut from the department approximately $20 million that will be redirected to fund areas like violence prevention, food access and abortion access programs. About $130 million was put into two transitional funds that will allow several of the department's traditional duties to remain funded while officials work out which responsibilities to keep under law enforcement and which to move out from under police oversight.


Policing is the most expensive item in most cities’ budgets. Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio budgeted more than one-third of their general funds for police departments during the 2020 fiscal year. Austin, which has now decided to reduce its funding and reorganize its police department, budgeted $444 dollars per resident on police in the 2020 fiscal year, more than any of the four largest cities in Texas. In that city, violent crime rates dropped by 25% between 2008 and 2018. This year through July, there were 29 homicides, compared with 19 during the same period last year, according to the police chief's monthly crime report.

Abbott said in a statement after the budget vote that it paved the way for lawlessness and DPS troopers would stand in to protect the city. Days later, Abbott and other Republican state leaders held a press conference to denounce the decision and promoted a vague proposal to freeze property tax revenues for any city that defunds law enforcement, citing a recent uptick in crime.

Austin City Council member Greg Casar said Thursday that Abbott's latest tweet was another attempt to draw attention away from the state's failed response to the pandemic.

"This, just like the other likely illegal, absurd proposal, are attacks on Austin's local democracy and attacks on our focus on civil rights," he said. "When you look at it, it seems pretty clearly like an attempt at political theater and grandstanding."


An Abbott spokesperson did not respond to repeated requests about the proposed legislation last week.

The proposal for state police to take over a local police department is an action Casar and multiple policing reform advocates said they had never heard of happening before, but DPS is often entangled in city policing. The governor can send troopers into areas deemed in need of support. Last year, when Dallas had a startling number of homicides, Abbott also sent in his police force.

Violent crime did drop in the areas of Dallas where they were deployed, but some city officials said they were still doing more harm than good. They said an "overwhelming" number of residents complained that the troopers were over-policing neighborhoods, questioning people about their immigration status and stopping people for soon-to-expire, but still valid, inspection stickers.

Sara Labowitz, policy and advocacy director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, noted last week that the proposal follows a pattern of state leaders fighting to seize control from local officials, like mask orders during early months of the pandemic.


“States scream local control at the federal government and then squeeze localities of that same local control," she said. "Local government is the most democratic in a lot of ways, it is the most responsive to people.”

Juan Pablo Garnham contributed reporting.

 

Abbott doesn’t play liberal fools games. Texans, I am one, hate what Austin has become. It has left Texas.

 

No, no, NO! Austin has made their choice to remove some funding for the law enforcement department, so they should be the ones who get to live with the results of that decision. Already many innocent tAustinites have suffered and will further suffer because the liberal city council of Austin doesn't have the guts to enforce the laws in the books. Maybe when the rioters go to city councilmen's and the mayor's homes and raise their hell, they will realize how they screwed up.

 

Have a nephew in the force there in Austin. 30 years now. Wonder if he is thinking it is time to retire.

Well folks, invite all those west coast commie Farts to come on over.. Looks like they didn't leave their commie ideas behind them. Or. Has Austin always had these commie ideas?

Don't misunderstand, I do like Texas, have had some great times there and nothing has ever stired me more than having a Texas gal talk to me. I just think it is a shame that the commie scourge has infested you all.

 

Libs always always hit the soft under belly.

Austin is a soft target.

 

52,000 UT students who are there for 4-5 years being brainwashed by Socialist professors and voting in local elections. Then they leave and don’t have to live with the consequences. That’s what is wrong with Austin. Plus high tech importing liberals for employment. And it’s only going to get worse. I have no desire to return to the capital of my own state.

 

That’s what’s happening in Boise, Idahoans better wake up and keep an eye out for them stealthy liberal/progressive/socialist or they will become like Wa and Or...
Its the worst kind of cancer eating the guts out of America.

 

in Nevada most went south to Las Vegas area and a few went to Reno are... thing is those 2 counties have so many libs there...

they pretty much run the state... and they gave us Sisolack and 2 dem senators...

and the new governor bought himself a nice 8 million dollar jet to run around in... then started laying off DMV workers n shit...

new gov same guy that collected lots of money saying it was for survivors and NONE of the survivors saw any of it...

the previous Rep Gov was bringning jobs and industry... but they dumped him...

dems go figure huh... still bogels the mind...

leave a state due to politicians fuckin up your state then vote for same type politicians in your new state...

 

So now the taxpayers of the entire state of Texas have to foot the bill for Austin's City Police. Austin is the liberal progressive cesspool of Texas. By cutting the city's police budget the lawlessness typical of other Democrat Party led northern cities was about to become evident. Instead TX Governor "Grabbit" Abbott has decided to put a band aid on the cancer. SMH.....

 

Bad all the way around. It removes responsibility from the Mayor and City Council and places it on the State.

 

The Mayor and council have proven they do not have the Ba11s to take care of business and the Gov is taking care of business as he sees fit and how the state is set up.
Constitution leaves the policing up to the state if the cities fail to protect the people and infrastructure of the cities.

This is how other states should have reacted instead other states encouraged riots and loss of city and sate buildings and lives.

Texas Rangers were always the law that took care of business and the Texas Rangers are a part of the DPS aka State Police.

It appears to me the Gov is giving notice he will not put up with riots, maybe just giving the Mayor a little back bone before he gives him a boot up the nether regions.

Just call it proactive law enforcement.

FWIW, Town I live near handled things correctly and requested DPS to block traffic into (state highway) the city required marchers to get a permit and then Police marched with the group after clearing streets of anything set up to be used for weapons.

 

Not taking anything away, just giving notice of his next step.
City Gov et-al. has already proven they are not up to the job of protecting the job they ran for.
End result was DEAD citizens.

 

When they defuned the police remember to call 811 before you dig, you know, long shallow holes.