The relationship between the AG真人百家乐 County District Attorney鈥檚 office and the Austin Police Department is fraught. It has been since Jos茅 Garza was elected DA in 2020.
Indictments, and miscommunication have all played a hand in the less-than-functional relationship between the two parties.
But since Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis took over last year, the two sides have shown a desire to mend fences.
How did things get so bad?
Garza won the 2020 Democratic primary, running on a progressive platform and crushing his opponent with nearly 70% of the vote
The campaign was uniquely timed. Garza pledged to prosecute police misconduct if elected, specifically calling out the lack of movement on one case: the April 2020 police killing of Mike Ramos.
Ramos was fatally shot by APD officers while trying to flee arrest. The case drew the attention of Austinites who saw parallels between Ramos, an unarmed Black and Latino man, and George Floyd in Minneapolis. Protesters invoked his name at demonstrations over the summer of 2020. During those protests, dozens of people were severely injured by officers, prompting a reckoning of police use of force and a retooling of how APD was funded.
Before he was even elected, Garza set his sights on prosecuting officers who seriously injured demonstrators, as well as Chris Taylor, the officer who shot Ramos.
Now, nearly five years later, the district attorney has come through on his campaign promise. He's indicted officers for excessive force and even murder, and that's led to resentment among APD's rank and file.
Friction
The conflict was brought about by a district attorney trying to prosecute police he must work with to prosecute other crimes, Austin defense attorney Angelica Cogliano said.
Garza indicted 21 officers for excessive force during the 2020 protests, along with a handful of officers, including Taylor, for on-duty shootings.
That's been a nonstarter for some within the police department.
"Our DA's office has prosecuted a lot of police officers," Cogliano said. "So that creates mistrust between the two at the most basic level."
That mistrust led to dysfunction, she said.
The dysfunction is part of why the DA鈥檚 office and the city reached an agreement to drop 17 indictments against officers in 2023. The deal aimed, as Austin Mayor Kirk Watson said, to fix the "very broken" relationship between the two offices.
"One reason we pursued this agreement with the DA was to help us get unstuck," in a December 2023 statement. "We鈥檙e trying to rebuild mutual respect and trust."
Function
Despite that chapter being closed, the friction persists two years later.
The city's police union, the Austin Police Association, regularly for a perceived spike in crime, as well as low morale and high turnover at the department.
After the DA secured a conviction against Taylor for fatally shooting Mauris DeSilva during a mental health call in 2019, the union president called on APD officers to to mental health calls altogether.
Michael Bullock said Taylor had acted within the law, while the DA's office was pursing "sweetheart deals" with people accused of violent crimes, leading to a spike in crime.
"You have declared war upon law enforcement," Bullock said. "This approach to freeing criminals, yet bringing the full weight of your office to prosecute officers who acted within their training and the defense of others is reprehensible."
"You have declared war upon law enforcement. This approach to freeing criminals, yet bringing the full weight of your office to prosecute officers who acted within their training and the defense of others is reprehensible."Michael Bullock, Austin Police Association
According to state statistics submitted to the FBI, Austin's has been dropping steadily since 2022.
But there is a perception of higher-than-normal crime in Austin, said Democratic state Sen. Sarah Eckhardt, who after an found Garza's office hadn't been prosecuting some cases 鈥� including two murder cases.
"There is a pervasive feeling of fear that, I think, when ... [APD and Garza's office] are fighting, it fans that fear," she said. "And so we need to find stability, so that people feel that public safety is working."
Eckhardt said the two agencies need to focus on their constitutionally required roles: enforcing and prosecuting crimes, "not fighting with each other over who did 鈥� or did not 鈥� do what."
Cogliano said the spat between the two has led to miscommunication in court. She said APD and the DA's office aren't always on the same page in investigations, which can lead to delays or even cases getting thrown out.
"If they're not communicating ... it causes [cases] to get jammed up ... and very significant evidence to fall through the cracks," she said. "Then it never gets fixed, and that can really put innocent people at risk and delay justice for victims."
What's next?
In a joint interview this month, Davis and Garza told KUT News they've been working to repair the relationship between the agencies and move forward.
Davis said she's hoping to bolster APD's training, part of a yearslong effort to retool classes for cadets and longtime officers to emphasize de-escalation. On top of that, she said, she and Garza talk at least once a week.
"We don't agree all the time, but ... I think we know where each other's coming from," she said. "And I think there's importance in that ... as we do move forward."
Garza said his office's communication with APD has been more productive than in previous years, and the talks have been constructive and consistent.
"Our dialogue is always respectful," he said. "And I think whatever it is that we're talking about, whether we agree or disagree, what we're both moving toward is, 'OK, ... what's the solution here? How do we solve this? How do we make it better?' And I think that's going to that's going to take us a long way."
