 "Photo: Daniela Trujillo/The Daily Texan")
Austin police Chief Art Acevedo urged the city Rotary Club Tuesday to adopt a big-city attitude toward crime.
He said punishments should correspond to the severity of crimes committed, and additional technology could prevent more crime than high officer-civilian
ratios.
“Austin has a very small-town mentality. We take time to talk about progress, but we are a $240 million public safety business,” Acevedo said. “If we are going to maintain this city as one of the safest cities in America, we are going to have to decide whether we want a big-city mentality [where we work quickly] or a small-town mentality of 50,000 people where we can afford to take time to talk about progress.”
Gigi Edwards, chairwoman of the Rotary Club’s speaker bureau, said the club brings in a speaker to every Tuesday meeting to commend the positive things he or she does for the community.
Acevedo highlighted what he felt are major weaknesses in Austin’s security, such as minor repercussions for violent crimes. He pointed to the policies of Williamson County — which uses harsher punishments — as the other extreme that Austin should avoid.
“[Compared to Williamson,] we are a magnet for criminal activity because the level of accountability and consequences in our county is [low],” Acevedo said.
He cited the case of a drug addict who received probation after trying to slit the coronary artery of a police officer.
“Only in Austin would someone attempt to kill a man in uniform like that,” Acevedo said.
Austin, when compared to cities such as Boston or Los Angeles, has a relatively low officer-to-civilian ratio. Acevedo said that he would rather use technology, such as cameras and the proposed Austin Regional Intelligence Center, which will combine data from Travis, Williamson and Hayes County, to catch criminals.
“I’m not saying we need more officers — we need to leverage technology. Big Brothers are actually good. They keep an eye out for you,” Acevedo said.
An office of risk management that now keeps track of officers on leave and checks that they are not abusing their benefits, helped uncover an employee who had been on leave for almost a year citing health reasons that turned out to be unfounded.
Acevedo ended his speech by encouraging the audience to actively participate in the security affairs of the city and to believe in his ability to lead the police department.
“No one spends more time in this county than I do,” Acevedo said. “No one knows what this county needs more than I do. If we need to keep Austin weird, we can, but we need to stop keeping safety weird.”
1 comments