Police Chief in Austin, TX, Resigns Abruptly Amid Reports of Staffing Shortage
“Chief Chacon approached the job with an obvious desire to support his team and to protect our community.”
Recent reports say that the police force in Austin, Texas, is so short on staff that detectives have to pitch in to answer 911 calls. Thomas Villarreal, the president of the Austin Police Association, made the claim.
FOX News reports:
Austin PD hundreds of officers short as crime cripples city; union warns: ‘Don’t have the resources’
Austin, Texas, residents are feeling the aftershocks of the “defund the police” movement as staff shortages reportedly are leaving 911 callers on hold and crime continues to spiral out of control.
Thomas Villarreal, president of the Austin Police Association, blamed the city council for neglecting local law enforcement, telling “Fox & Friends” on Monday that the alleged missteps have concocted a larger problem.
“We just continue to have a city council that doesn’t show its police officers that [it] cares about them,” he said…
“I’ve got about 1,475 officers in our police department and, you know, we’re moving in the wrong direction. There’s less and less and less resources to go out and do the job. I’ve got detectives who are pulled away from their caseload to just help answer 911 calls because we just don’t have the resources to adequately police the city.”
Just as this hit the news on Monday, Austin Police Chief Joseph Chacon announced his resignation. Chacon became chief just after the riots in the spring of 2020.
This comes just days after the entire police force of Goodhue, Minnesota, quit their jobs.
CBS News in Austin reports:
Austin Police Chief Joseph Chacon stepping down after 25 years with APD
Austin Police Chief Joseph Chacon is stepping down and has announced his retirement from APD after 25 years with the department.
The announcement was made early Monday morning in a press release from the City of Austin.
“The role of Chief is not an easy one.” Mayor Kirk Watson said. “Chief Chacon approached the job with an obvious desire to support his team and to protect our community.”
Chacon was named interim chief in the spring of 2021 following the retirement of Chief Brian Manley and appointed to the position six months later.
I'm announcing my retirement as the Chief of the @Austin_Police with a heavy heart. I've come to this decision after a lot of thought. It has been an honor to serve this department and this wonderful community, and I know I'm leaving you in good hands. pic.twitter.com/evwBGGEwQr
— Joseph Chacon 👮🏻♂️ (@Chief_Chacon) August 21, 2023
Watch this video report from KVUE News in Austin. It tells you so much about what is really happening here. Almost every aspect of the story is told from a progressive point of view.
What happens when blue cities can no longer hire police officers?
Are the social workers going to step up and start answering 911 calls?
Featured image via YouTube.
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Comments
That’s what “defund the police” MEANS, Bunky.
Yep. Exactly so. When the white women of a certain political persuasion become victims themselves or begin to be inconvenienced by rising crime like stores locking down previously open merchandise, shuttering some locations and forcing a longer drive or the arrival to ‘their’ store location of an influx of folks from the neighborhood which had the store closure then they will pay attention.
Of course the first instinct of these types is go full on Karen mode and tell the woefully understaffed PD to ‘do their job’. Which is exactly what the policies they demanded, promulgated by the lefty politicians they voted for, are preventing the PD from doing.
There’s a bit of a lag effect at play here IMO. A reduction in staffing and a lenient, woke DA doesn’t instantly create a dystopian environment. Instead the PD can, for a time, shift personnel around and go to mandatory overtime with 80 hour weeks. Then burn out begins as does the wave of retirements and transfers out to other departments. That’s about the time the criminals figure out the rules of the new landscape and organize themselves for large scale smash and grab robberies. Not to mention the spike in property crime as the PD shifts to reacting to major crimes only and citizens are largely left on their own to suffer.
Democrat voters are responsible for this predicament. I wonder how many officers will leave right after the Chief? After a while, too few police can put the fire dept and EMS at risk of attack by criminals. As fire and EMS personnel leave more of the city is at risk and insurance for the city becomes more expensive and maybe unavailable. This effects city property and private property as well as public liability. .
It’s Austin, and no city in Texas (possibly excepting Houston) deserves this result more.
The progressive marxists own those towns these days and they should get what they voted for, good and hard, over and over, until the lesson sticks.
If things get bad enough, maybe the state legislature can take over the city.
Obvious question: What mechanism might the Texas General Assembly have to remove the Austin city council for cause and take over administration of the city?
Cities and counties are agencies of the state, so there are things they could do if there was any political will.
Back when Austin was going totally nuts a couple of years ago (believe it or not, as bad as it is now it was worse before the Legislature nixed the City’s allowance of “public camping”), there was a serious proposal in the Legislature that would allow the Gov. to order the state police to take over APD, with the cost of policing deducted directly from Auston’s share of sales tax revenues. The threat was enough to make the hard core nuts back away from their radical “defund the police” efforts.
Abbott could easily add that to a call for a special session (there’s apparently going to be at least one more after the Paxton trial in the Senate plays out). But like so many other things, Abbott lacks the guts to do it
The real problem is the Soros DA we have in Travis County. If you are a cop or a citizen who has to defend yourself from Antifa or members of certain demographics, he’s throw the entire weight of his office against you. If you are a common career criminal from certain identity groups, not so much. Austin can add all the cops it wants, but if de la Garza just turns them loose, it doesn’t do any good.
Did someone mention a “Soros DA”? Ron DeSantis has fired two of those in Florida.
None!
I have nothing to add. I just want an excuse to say <groucho-waggle>
🙂
Citizen: “Hello, 911. I want to report a rape and knife attack in progress by an Hispanic male on an elderly nun outside the Immaculate Mary Convent.”
Dispatcher: “Lady, this line is reserved for serious emergencies such as hate speech. Please hang up, and don’t call back.”
I’ll bet if I blew through town doing 100 on I-35 they’d find a cop to pull me over. (Just a theory – you can’t do 100 on I-35 because of the permanent traffic jam at the Express Lanes).
Yeah, but it would be the Texas Highway Patrol, not local cops. The real fun would be if they arrested you and put you in local lockup for it. Jails were spartan enough before the de-funding.
Could be either, or even a Travis County deputy. You still can’t get past the traffic jam.
BTW, the normal left lane speed on I-35 (outside of town) is around 95, and if you aren’t doing it, you’re blocking traffic.
People might think you’re joking, but I’m in the process of making weekly trips for moving my belongings from my old Austin residence to another home in Dallas county and last weekend on I-35 I had my cruise control set at 90 mph and people were tailgating me.
Austin. Seattle. Chicago. Yemen. Baltimore. Lebanon. Gaza. Etc……. many examples of the Impoverishment-Industrial Complex: The more the politicians in charge can destroy the lives of the citizens —-> the more $$$ in humanitarian assistance booty will come their way from funding agencies — federal, state, international, NGO etc
Get rid of the honest police officers and it becomes much easier for the politicians to get away with crime and oppress honest citizens
Also it’s easier to create the seeds of a Marxist revolution in such chaos
It’s all by design, comrades, it’s all part of the plan.
… And it’s also part of the Curley Effect. “Better to rule hell than be an ordinary citizen in heaven” for these politicians
Austin, still keepin’ it weird. Yeah, you’ll have to inconvenience the local Karens and former hippies before anything sensible gets done.
“What happens when blue cities can no longer hire police officers?”
They’ll probably start handing out badges and guns to Antifa members.
Like Clockwork Orange?
Or Kurt Schlichter’s novels.
Another American Marxist urban utopia to avoid at ALL COSTS. An ever growing list.
. Abbott needs to declare martial law in Austin and send in the National Guard and Texas Rangers and restore order before this further descends into uncontrolled chaos. Woke LIbs can’t govern themselves. They are anarchsts.
Many pensions are calculated on the last years pay. Short staffing means lots of overtime boosting their pensions encouraging them to retire sooner. It may also result in earlier promotions.