Austin (STILL) Avoids Accountability

Response to the City's Response to the APA's Response to the Sanders Settlement

Putting Out Fire with Gasoline

As you couldn't possibly have avoided noticing the intense heatwave by now, the Austin Police Association (APA/union) lit a major bonfire, and Mayor Leffingwell and Mayor Pro Tem Martizez (MPT) ran for the gas can instead of the firehose...the MPT forgetting his roots, it seems.

But a firefighter no more, the MPT now represents, not just works for, the people...not the APA. Mayor and Council oversee the chief and the police ranks, but not the union's interest who have PLENTY of influence already over our representatives, with $30,000 in bundled contributions to get our current mayor elected. Council needs to put aside who has the fat cash drawer and focus on listening to the community right now, not present us with knee-jerk responses to the bully tactics of the union. The MPT hurried back from a vacation in Colorado and didn't have a sit down with the Legal Department (“Legal”) first before coming out publicly echoing special interests, nor did he meet with community leaders first to find out their interests. He just based his decision to oppose this settlement simply on the collective opinion of APA and their faithful "the police are always right/more police is always the answer" community parrots. 

Martinez needs to take a cue from his hero President Obama who actually apologized for making the same mistake regarding Shirley Sherrod: responding to special-interests histrionics (FOX=APA) by making a call with serious ramifications without investigating the facts first. The MPT, with his letter last week, threw Legal, Chief Acevedo, the Sanders and the community, and perhaps the City itself under the bus. He can try to counter his obvious slant toward the APA by posturing all he wants, saying we need to see all the facts, but that message is also stamped “APA-approved,” so it's hardly a bone thrown to the community.

When he calls for facts to come out, but ignores key facts that have been out for some time, it speaks volumes.

"Our grand jury, office of the police monitor and the citizens review panel have failed the community?" he asks.

"No," is the answer. APD/Internal Affairs did. They didn’t run the gun for fingerprints, nor did they interview the many witnesses who have since testified (in the civil suit) that they saw Sanders’ hands go in the air immediately upon wakening. The Grand Jury didn't have all the facts to do their job and the PMO/CRP recommended 90 days also lacking those facts, but did recommend the KeyPoint report; which, as we finally now know, no thanks to our City leaders, said "EXCESSIVE...CRIMINAL... RECKLESS," while also lacking the key facts since exposed through civil litigation. Why City leaders keep mentioning the KeyPoint report as if it is part of a package of items that justify the shooting is a complete mystery. It blatantly disputed the APD Internal Affairs (IA) investigation, using their own findings, but it was supposed to instill trust in that investigation...yet we're not talking about it!

Hypocrisy in Action, Democracy Inaction and Overcooked Red Herrings

The MPT followed the APA's lead, calling for police to teach people how better to react to police (while they're asleep in a car?). So if the overall checks and balances fail us in police oversight, then we have no accountability and I’m not sure I see the wisdom of calling for an unaccountable police department to "teach proper response." Is this so we can learn to “avoid” getting brutalized or unjustly shot? What about training for the police on how not to use excessive force on a daily basis? For every case you see in the paper, like the shooting deaths or brutalizing of old ladies, there are 100 more incidents not exposed publicly.

Our Council works for the people of Austin, and is accountable for the police, not the police's interest in getting bigger paychecks and being subject to less accountability.

The Mayor is following suit, saying a week ago in In Fact Daily he was “leaning against” the settlement. He threw blame to the Sanders’ attorney for saying what was already on everyone’s mind: that settling was an admission of guilt (though a settlement would in fact dictate that it was legally not such). He conveyed surprised by the “unduly large” number. Well that’s news to Councilmembers Cole and Spelman who both validated the $750,000 figure being part of the previous executive session discussion, as a ceiling figure, and don't recall there being any concerns raised about it then. This only further exposed the motivations of the Mayor and MPT and created more community chaos and dais chaos: the last thing we need is a Council at each other's throats while we’re caught in the larger swirling maelstrom.

Other councilmembers are being more responsible in not taking a position until they meet with Legal and are hopefully all waiting to collectively meet in executive session Thursday to discuss the pros and cons with other councilmembers, before making up their mind. If they have discussions about it with more than three at the table ahead of time, they are not in compliance with the state Open Meetings Act, so they can't talk together until Thursday - unless they break state law to do it.

For those that have already announced their intention to vote against the settlement without waiting for this key session to discuss those consequences (will it open up the City to even more financial and legal liability?), who are simultaneously finger-pointing and fist-clenching about the Sander's attorney exhibiting "bad faith" for being quoted as saying the settlement is an admission of wrongdoing, they fail to address why they approved Legal enter these negotiations, but NOW, immediately after the APA's threatening letter arrived in their email inbox, think it's a bad idea to settle. "We approved...but we didn't necessarily agree," was the MPT's, uh, explanation. Now that seems like bad faith, if not messaging out of Karl Rove's playbook.

Council's job right now is to focus on its own liability -even beyond this case- instead of building the pile of red herrings ever-higher by pointing at the Plaintiff's attorney; he represents the family, and the Council represents the entire community.

Backing out, at the 11th hour, of negotiations already "approved," "agreed," whatever term you apply to Council giving the green light TO negotiate can have very serious, expensive consequences for the City. If they voted the settlement down, would Judge Sparks deny the option of the City entering negotiations in future appearances in his courtroom? Will it cost us more money to develop the reputation as a government entity who gives in to "union goons" (as union-bashers like to say, but APA in full-on-bully-mode certainly earns the title) and throws out 100s if not 1000s of combined labor hours on a negotiation just to, in the final stretch, hide behind elected officials "cries for justice" in an effort to keep those union goons funding their campaigns?

We're fielding a civil suit in part because of a boy dead at the City's hands, but also in part due to a predetermined outcome, a botched investigation (lending to an inadequate grand jury inquiry), a cover up, more cover ups, and failed oversight systems. No amount of money could be worth the loss of a child, or the torture such a suit entails (for those who imagine the Sanders idly going about their daily lives, sleeping like babies at night, waiting to "cash in," then you have never experienced anything close to this emotionally, physically and financially draining ordeal). This is not about a family receiving justice - that can't happen unless Quintana is put in jail for his actions deemed "criminal" by the independent investigators. This is about a City's failed processes.

We're at this juncture because leaders let politics drive justice, yet again.

The City needs to take responsibility for why they are in this mess, that they approved negotiations and that certain members of the dais are attempting to withdraw their "good faith" efforts in green-lighting the negotiations, while not waiting until they debate settling or not in full.

LEADERSHIP in Action

The Statesman advised Council in their recent op-ed to "resist the temptation to showboat and figure out a way to shed some light on this case, which has been costly in lives, careers, time, money and emotional energy."

LEADERSHIP would entail taking the bulls by the horns and embarking on the work it will take to fix the failed accountability in this matter and the broken oversight systems.

The real issue at hand that Councilmembers need to acknowledge is that besides this debacle's damage to community trust in our City, the community's sentiment is that we are worse off in terms police accountability right now than we were a decade ago before we even had an oversight system in place.

We need philosopher kings, not trigger-happy cowboys. Like our Chief coming out the first day of the shooting without having investigated fully to say “the initial shots were justified” (setting the narrative for this failed process), the MPT has managed to set that exposure of the truth back several notches that he claims to advocate for. 

Responsible LEADERSHIP is fact-finding, not fancying yourself omnipotent.

Austin Police Accountability Coalition wants to know when our City LEADERS are going to take action to settle with the people of Austin and fix our broken system of police accountability so that this does not happen again.

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APAC meets Tuesdays, 6-8 pm at 5604 Manor and will hold a press conference and "Rally for Reform!" at City Hall this Thursday, July 29th at 11:45am.  Find us on Facebook.