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Defunding disaster: Austin Police no longer responding to ‘non-life threatening’ 911 calls
Department suffering from acute staffing shortages after Austin City Council defunded police budget by $150 million.
The Austin Police Department is warning it won’t be responding to non-life threatening 911 calls.
Starting Friday, Austin’s sworn police officers will no longer be responding in person to non-emergency calls because of severe staffing shortages, APD announced.
The announcement comes after the Harris County Sheriff’s Deputies Organization in Houston warned residents that if they were “robbed, raped or shot” to “hold their breath and pray” because they might not have the personnel to respond.
The Austin no-response announcement includes vehicle collisions with no injuries and burglaries no longer in progress or where the suspect has fled the scene. Instead of calling 911, residents are being told to call 311 to file a non-emergency police report.
An APD spokesperson told Fox News that while a sworn police officer might not respond in person, a civilian officer, like a crime scene technician, might.
The department “regularly reviews response policies and procedures to ensure APD prioritizes calls with an immediate threat to life or property over non-emergency calls for service,” she said.
The staffing shortages and inability to respond to non-life threatening 911 calls is a direct result of the Austin City Council’s defunding of the APD last year, cutting $150 million of its budget, and other changes that were implemented affecting how the department operates.
“As a result of a recent review of APD’s patrol COVID mitigation protocols initiated in May 2020, recent staffing challenges and aligning with the Reimagining Public Safety Task Force patrol response recommendations, APD will change call routing and response for non-emergency calls for service effective October 1, 2021,” she said.
Austin Police Association President Ken Casaday told Fox News that APD hasn’t been able to hire new officers because it hasn’t been able to have a police academy for nearly two years. As a result, there aren’t enough patrol officers to respond to non-emergency calls.
“Probably about 95% of the time our shifts don’t meet minimum staffing … and that is the reason they’ve started cutting back on what types of calls are answered,” Casaday said. “It’s not optimal. It’s not providing a quality service to the community. But the community also needs to understand that we’re under a dire staffing crisis.”
After the City Council cut funding last year, by July, response times to 911 calls were 20-30 minutes longer on average, and the homicide rate is at a level that “we’ve never really seen here before,” interim chief Joseph Chacon said at the time. Cutting APD funds by $150 million resulted in canceling multiple cadet classes and disbanding multiple units responsible for responding to DWIs, domestic violence calls, stalking, and criminal interdiction.
The APD has been losing 15 to 20 officers a month, with many quitting and retiring and not enough new recruits to replace them. The department has projected 235 vacancies by May 2022, and 340 vacancies by May 2023.
while the APD has recently begun to resume cadet classes, it will take a while to get new officers on the streets. The city is paying more than $10,000 per day, with a maximum of $580,000 per year, to Joyce James Consulting to provide an “anti-racism” Critical Race Theory-based curriculum for a “reimagining public safety campaign.”
While the Houston sheriff’s organization sued Harris County over a lack of funding and noncompliance with regulations, a bipartisan activist group, Save Austin Now, took another approach. It initiated its second successful ballot initiative this year to allow voters to restore police funding.
“Austin doesn’t feel as safe recently. Because it isn’t,” the group argued as part of its campaign. “We’ve seen a series of city policy decisions over the last two years that have led to a surge in both violent crime and property crime against Austinites. A 300% increase in murders this year. A double-digit increase in property crimes such as burglaries and car jackings.”
“As Austin’s crime rate has soared, the federal government has taken note of it and sent in resources to help stabilize the chaos,” it adds. “But we cannot rely on the federal government’s Operation Undaunted to provide us with the local resources we’ll need to fight this trend: We’ll have to do it ourselves.”
Their petition received the required number of votes and its proposed public safety law will be on the November ballot. Among other things, it includes adding officers to APD according to the nationally recognized “Safe City Standard,” which stipulates two police officers hired for every 1,000 citizens.
Married couple Jeni Pearsons and Michael Store aren’t wealthy.
Pearsons works at a nonprofit theater in Los Angeles , and Store is a transportation coordinator in the film industry. The couple has been saving for retirement for years, buying silver here and there when they could afford it. To keep their property safe, they rented a safe deposit box at U.S. Private Vaults.
They thought everything was above board until news broke earlier this year about a raid at the Beverly Hills business.
The government alleged that the company conspired with customers to sell drugs, launder money, and stash ill-gotten goods.
LA COUNTY ABUSES ASSET FORFEITURE, SEIZING MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF MONEY WITHOUT DUE PROCESS
Armed with a warrant, FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration agents spent five days ripping several hundred safety deposit boxes out of the walls and laying claim to its contents.
Prosecutors argued they were within their rights and that the boxes contained weapons and drugs. They also took jewelry, precious metals, and stacks of money to an undisclosed warehouse. Their final haul was worth around $86 million.
The problem is that federal authorities took the items from people who hadn’t been accused of a crime, including Pearsons and Store.
They’ve been able to keep it because of the country’s vague standards of civil forfeiture law, which allows the government to seize property and assets without any actual evidence of criminal wrongdoing.
During the raid, the authorities also seized Joseph Ruiz’s life savings.
The unemployed chef, who had a side job selling bongs made from liquor bottles, had stored $57,000 in his safety deposit box.
Prosecutors argued that he couldn’t possibly make enough money to have that much saved up and accused him of being an unlicensed marijuana dealer.
He went to court to get his money back and won. The government dropped its case against him after he was able to provide documents that showed the source of his money was legitimate.
“It was a complete violation of my privacy,” Ruiz told the Los Angeles Times. “They tried to discredit my character.”
Ruiz is one of 800 people whose money and property were taken in the March 22 raid. Six months later, the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles hasn’t been able to prove criminal wrongdoing by the majority of box holders whose belongings the government is actively trying to keep.
Like Ruiz, 65 others have filed court documents claiming the government grab was unconstitutional.
CIVIL ASSET FORFEITURE CRIES OUT FOR REFORM
An investigation by the Los Angeles Times shows that the government’s reasons for taking money and property against numerous others were just as flimsy as it was in Ruiz’s case.
Agents claim drug-sniffing dogs alerted them to the scent of narcotics on the seized cash, but multiple analyses of drug-dog alerts have consistently shown high error rates, some hitting past the 50% mark.
“In effect, some of these K-9 units are worse than a coin flip,” Washington Post columnist Radley Balko said in a post about the accuracy of canine searches. He added that “while dogs are indeed capable of sniffing out illicit drugs, we’ve bred into them another overriding train: the desire to please. Even drug dogs with conscientious handlers will read their handlers’ unintentional body language and alert accordingly.”
Federal authorities have also pointed to the use of rubber bands to keep stacks of cash together, as well as other normal ways of storing currency, as tell-tale signs of money laundering and drug trafficking from the U.S. Private Vaults box holders.
The government also said in court documents that it deposited all the seized money in a bank, which experts say would make it impossible to test which drugs may have come in contact with which bills.
And even though U.S. Private Vaults was indicted in February on charges of conspiring with unnamed customers to sell drugs and launder money, no one has been charged.
The criminal case against them hasn’t moved forward, and the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles isn’t saying why, the Los Angeles Times reported.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Unfortunately for many of the box holders, in civil forfeiture cases, a person is often guilty until proven innocent. No criminal conviction is required, and the government only has to show that it’s more likely than not that the money or property taken was linked to illegal activity.
Civil forfeiture was initially one way to cripple large-scale criminal enterprises by taking their assets. However, the practice has been widely abused, with victims forced to give up their homes and property and then spent small fortunes trying to get them back.
“Today, aided by deeply flawed federal and state laws, many police departments use forfeiture to benefit their bottom lines, making seizures motivated by profit rather than crime-fighting,” the American Civil Liberties Union said. “For people whose property has been seized through civil asset forfeiture, legally regaining such property is notoriously difficult and expensive, with costs sometimes exceeding the value of the property.”
For Pearsons and Store, the government’s seizure of their silver is unacceptable, and they have decided to fight back.
They, along with six others, have teamed up with the Institute for Justice for a class-action lawsuit challenging the government’s raid as an illegal search.
“The government’s theory is that having cash makes you a presumptive criminal, and I think every American should be worried about that,” IJ senior attorney Rob Johnson said.
Horrific moment policemen shove woman to the ground and pepper spray her face as she lay hurt on the road – as protest over lockdown erupted into violence on the streets of Melbourne
- Woman knocked to ground and subdued with pepper spray in frightening scene
- Incident occurred during ugly clashed with protesters and police in Melbourne
- Shocking footage and images of incident sparked divided reaction from viewers
- Do you know more? Email tips@dailymail.com
An elderly woman was shoved to the ground and doused with pepper spray by two policemen during the Melbourne anti-lockdown riot.
The woman was bowled over by the two cops before they fired the spray directly on her face as she lay defenceless on the road trying to shield her eyes.
Disturbing photos and video of the scene divided the public who were outraged at heavy-handed police tactics, while others felt she deserved it for breaking public health orders.
Hundreds of anti-lockdown demonstrators took to the streets in Melbourne on Saturday, sparking violent confrontations with police that resulted in 235 arrests and 10 injured officers.
A woman, reported to be in her 70s was knocked to the ground during the violent clashes between protesters and police in Melbourne
Demonstrators were slammed by most Victorians for breaking the city’s sixth lockdown, and Victorian Police commander Mark Galliott said the protest was just ‘angry, aggressive young males there to fight the police’.
But there was also anger towards police accused of using excessive force.
The footage shows the woman wearing a wig with an Australian flag draped around her being knocked to the ground by officers.
The woman, reportedly in her 70s, lay injured on the ground and shielded her face while being doused with pepper spray by two officers standing over her.
She is seen wincing and writhing in pain as officers eventually help her to her feet.
While viewers agreed the actions of some protestors in Saturday weren’t necessary, they believe police used excessive force.
‘This country is turning to s**t very quickly…and it’s not because of the virus,’ host of The Primodcast posted.
‘It’s because of incompetent state governments and big pharmaceutical companies taking advantage of the situation to make a s*** tonne of money.’
The woman shields her face while being doused with pepper spray by police
The woman was bowled over by the two cops before they fired pepper spray directly on to her face as she lay defenceless on the road grabbing her eyes
Others called for the officers involved to be charged.
‘Sue every bloody one of these little animals who call themselves police. How would they like it, if it was their grandmother, mum, aunty, sister, niece or cousin,’ one wrote.
But not everyone was on the protester’s side.
‘If you feel danger, then stay home simple as that. Our freedom of choice is too important to let anyone talk us out of it,’ one wrote.
You are putting your own freedom at risk by blindly doing what other people tell you to do.’
One woman added: ‘You say she is not a danger, well actually she is a danger by just breathing on someone. Haven’t you noticed that we are in a global pandemic. Selfish people.’
Others called for footage leading up to the incident to be shared.
Daily Mail Australia has contacted Victoria Police for comment,
The injured protester is seen writhing in pain as she’s helped to her feet by police
The latest incident comes after footage emerged of a Melbourne protester surrendering to police before being tackled to ground and surrounded by up to a dozen officers on Saturday.
The 30 second clip begins with the man running away from dozens of police officers in hot pursuit as shocked passers-by watch on.
He eventually surrendered by putting his hands in the air as two officers caught up to him in a laneway.
He was quickly surrounded by officers who tackle him to the ground and detain him.
The head of Victoria’s Police Association has sensationally demanded his officers not be questioned for their tactics the riot.
Wayne Gatt implied protesters seen being roughly tackled, bashed with batons, and pepper sprayed while on the ground deserved it just for showing up.
He lashed out that those who wanted to have ‘needless debates’ about whether police actions in those cases were ‘proportionate’.
Mr Gatt even pushed to shut down discussion of ‘issues of what’s right and what’s wrong’ arising from the protests.
‘We need to stop nancy-pansying around these people, and we need to stop this needless debate about the proportionality, issues of what’s right and what’s wrong,’ he told reporters on Sunday.
‘They came into that demonstration with the intent to hurt our members, and they succeeded against 10 of them,’ he said.
‘I’m not coping looking at the 0.01 per cent of actions and looking at our members who were confronted with such overwhelming violence.’
Mr Gatt implied non-violent protesters caught in the crossfire between the angry mob and police deserved to be injured because they broke lockdown to participate.
‘Those actions wouldn’t have occurred if those people didn’t attend an unlawful protest, no one had to be there,’ he said.
Police tackle the man to the ground and surround him following the wild chase in Richmond
Police made 235 arrests on Saturday, most for breaching health directions while some were charged with assault, riotous behaviour and weapons and drug offences.
Those arrested will be fined $5,452 each, with 193 infringements handed out so far.
Police officers suffered injuries including a broken elbow and broken nose, a broken finger and torn muscles. Six officers were taken to hospital.
‘Police were subject to violent, hostile and aggressive behaviour,’ a Victoria Police statement read.
‘Numerous officers were assaulted while others had projectiles including glass bottles hurled in their direction.
‘It was extremely disappointing to see another example of a small minority of the community showing a complete disregard for the health and safety of not only police, but each and every other Victorian.’
Police investigations into Saturday’s protests are continuing.
While many viewers called for the officers who doused the woman with pepper spray to be punished, others said demonstrators should have stayed at home
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Just remember that at Best that the Cops are not your friend. Especially if they have to choose between their Job & you! Grumpy
Also this from Germany —-
German officials fear anti-mask radicalization after killing
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BERLIN (AP) — Senior officials in Germany expressed shock Tuesday over the killing of a young gas station clerk who was shot dead at the weekend by a man opposed to the country’s pandemic restrictions.
A 49-year-old German was arrested in the fatal shooting of the clerk Saturday in the western town of Idar-Oberstein. The suspect is being held on suspicion of murder.
Authorities said the man told officers he acted “out of anger” after being refused service by the clerk for not wearing a mask while trying to buy beer at the gas station.
“He further stated during interrogation that he rejected the measures against the coronavirus,” the Trier police department said in a statement.
A requirement to wear masks in stores is among the measures in place in Germany to stop the spread of the virus.
“I’m deeply shocked,” said Malu Dreyer, the governor of Rhineland-Palatinate state. “My thoughts are with the family and friends of the victim.”
Dreyer called for the killing to be thoroughly investigated and the perpetrator punished.
According to police, the suspect left the gas station after the dispute but then returned a half-hour later wearing a mask and fatally shot the 20-year-old clerk in the head.
The suspect, a German citizen named in local media as Mario N., initially fled the scene. After a large-scale manhunt was called he turned himself in to police on Sunday morning.
The three candidates to succeed Angela Merkel as chancellor in next Sunday’s German election also voiced dismay at the killing.
“I’m shaken by this terrible murder of a young man who merely asked that existing rules be followed,” Annalena Baerbock of the center-left Green party said in a tweet.
She warned of the growing radicalization of Germany’s Querdenken movement, which includes people who oppose masks and vaccines, conspiracy theorists and some far-right extremists.
Authorities didn’t immediately say whether the suspect was associated with that movement, which has come under increasing scrutiny from Germany’s security services following a series of large antigovernment protests, some of which turned violent.
But a Twitter account linked to the suspect followed several prominent German far-right politicians and publicists, including senior members of the Alternative for Germany party.
Posts from the account, which was last used in October 2019, reflect a dislike for immigrants, climate activists and the government
Prosecutors told Germany’s dpa news agency that the suspect wasn’t previously known to police and that he wasn’t legally entitled to possess the firearm found at his house.
Paul Ziemiak, the general secretary of Merkel’s center-right Christian Democratic Union party, called the clerk’s slaying “incomprehensible.”
“A young man was virtually executed because he pointed out the mask requirement,” Ziemiak said on Twitter. “An inconceivable level of radicalization!”
The Christian Democrats have come under criticism for a campaign video showing their candidate, Armin Laschet, giving a Querdenken activist the microphone during a campaign event.
The head of the domestic intelligence agency in the eastern state of Thuringia, Stephan Kramer, told Germany’s RND media group that the killing was “no surprise to me in view of the steady escalation in recent weeks.”
Kramer said his office had warned of the growing potential for violence from extremists.
“It’s regrettable that someone always has to die before the risk is taken seriously,” he was quoted as saying.
Facebook last week removed almost 150 accounts and pages linked to the Querdenken movement under a new policy focused on groups that spread misinformation or incite violence but which didn’t fit into the platform’s existing categories of bad actors.
BRIDGEPORT CT –-(Ammoland.com)- A federal judge rejected a Connecticut police officer’s request for qualified immunity after he arrested a man for carrying his legally processed gun.
Basel Soukaneh was driving his Kia Sorento in a high crime area in Waterbury, Connecticut, when the GPS on his iPhone froze up. The neighborhood is well-known for prostitution and drugs. Soukaneh pulled over his car to try to fix his phone that was in a phone holder. Officer David Andrzejewski noticed the stopped vehicle and started a traffic stop.
Officer Andrzejewski knocked on Mr. Soukaneh’s window. When Soukaneh rolled down the window and said “hi” to the officer, Soukaneh claimed that Andrzejewski screamed at him for his license. Soukaneh handed the police officer his license and gun permit. He informed Andrzejewski that he had a legally owned and carried pistol in the car with him. The cop grabbed Soukaneh and forcibly removed him from his Kia, and threw him on the ground.
Mr. Soukaneh claims that Officer Andrzejewski demanded that he tell the officer where the prostitute and drugs were located. The officer searched Soukaneh pulled out pills from the man’s pocket. The officer thought he found illicit drugs. In reality, what the officer discovered was Soukaneh’s nitroglycerin pills for his heart condition. In addition to the heart medication, the officer seized the $320 in cash plus a flash drive that contained pictures and videos of Soukaneh’s deceased father. Neither the flash drive nor the money was returned to Soukaneh.
The officer Handcuffed Soukaneh and threw him in the back of his police car. Soukaneh, who suffers from a bad back, screamed in pain. According to court records, the officer grabbed the handcuffs and jerked them, causing Soukaneh to be trapped in a position where he was partially on the floor of the back of the police cruiser, unable to see.
Officer Andrzejewski ran Soukaneh’s gun permit and found it to be valid. Shortly after, another officer and a sergeant arrived on the scene. Andrzejewski asked the two what he should “write him up for.” The sergeant told Andrzejewski what to write into the computer system.
Officer Andrzejewski claims that the initial stop was justified because he had “reasonable suspicion of unlawful activity.” He further states that the search of the vehicle and Soukaneh himself was based on probable cause. The officer claims that Soukaneh telling him that he was armed with a legally owned firearm with a valid permit was the probable cause needed to search the man and his vehicle.
Mr. Soukaneh is claiming that Officer Andrzejewski violated his Fourth Amendment rights by illegally searching him and his vehicle. He claims that the police officer didn’t have “reasonable suspicion of unlawful activity” to initiate the stop and that Officer Andrzejewski didn’t have probable cause for the search.
Officer Andrzejewski claims he is “entitled to qualified immunity because any violated rights were not clearly established.” According to the courts, “Qualified immunity gives government officials breathing room to make reasonable but mistaken judgments about legal questions.”
United States District Court, D. Connecticut Judge Janet Bond Arterton agreed that Officer Andrzejewski had reasonable suspicion due to the area where Soukaneh stopped his car. But Judge Arterton found that Officer Andrzejewski did not have probable cause to search Soukaneh’s car and person.
Moreover, Judge Bond Arterton stripped Andrzejewski of qualified immunity.
The Judge said, “no reasonable officer could believe probable cause was present.” According to Judge Bond Arterton, just because Soukaneh had a gun, it did not give the officer the right to act the way he did. The Judge said that any contrary holding “would eviscerate Fourth Amendment protections for lawfully armed individuals.”
Mr. Soukaneh’s lawsuit against Officer Andrzejewski will be allowed to continue.
Federal Denies Police Officer Qualified Immunity After He Arrested Lawful Gun Carrier USCOURTS
About John Crump
John is a NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. John has written about firearms, interviewed people of all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons and can be followed on Twitter at @crumpyss, or at www.crumpy.com.
The City of San Francisco announced this week a plan to launch a program that uses cash incentives and mentorship relationships to encourage violent criminals not to commit crimes.
Several other American cities have adopted similar programs, and the results have been mixed. Some cities have seen a marked decline in violent crime while others have experienced little change.
In San Francisco, the program has been dubbed the “San Francisco’s Dream Keeper Fellowship,” and the pilot program will target 10 people who program directors believe are at risk of committing violent crime, according to NBC Bay Area.
Critics of these and similar programs balk at using taxpayer dollars to bribe violent felons, but proponents say the money is part of a much larger system designed to stop violence before it starts.
“Paying criminals to not shoot is an enticing headline, but it is a significantly inaccurate description of the program,” David Muhammad told NBC. “The primary intervention is a positive and trusting relationship with what we call an intensive life coach.”
Muhammad is the Executive Director of the National Institute of Criminal Justice Reform, an advocacy organization that seeks to “reduce incarceration and violence.”
Those involved in San Francisco’s program will receive $300 per month for being involved, Muhammad says. They’ll also be eligible to receive an additional $200 per month for achieving certain outcomes.
The Second Amendment community’s response to these programs has varied. The National Rifle Association published an article in 2018 expressing support for programs that intervene in the lives of criminals because they target gun violence without attacking gun owners. The Dream Keeper Fellowship and similar initiatives might waste taxpayer money, but unlike other policies aimed at curbing “gun violence,” they don’t try to restrict lawful gun ownership.
Others argue that despite the short-term success of these programs, they promote the wrong incentive structure and will ultimately fail. Joel Shults, a retired police chief in Colorado, made this argument in a recent dialogue posted on Police1.
“What gets backward in the money-for-not-murdering plan is that the cash reward can only be earned if you are already an offender or associated with a criminal gang,” he said. “Many businesses around the world have been paying people not to smash their windows or burn their buildings or break their kneecaps. Seems to be effective in the short term, while buying trouble in the long term.”
Strangely, gun-control groups are often the biggest proponents of “community violence intervention” programs even though these programs, if successful, would undercut their gun control agenda. Everytown for Gun Safety and Giffords have published violence intervention pages on their websites, and President Joe Biden included $5 billion for these programs in the American Jobs Plan.
Only time will tell if this latest attempt has success in The City by the Bay.
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The Life of a Cop is never an easy one! Grumpy