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Police Monitor: Austin police commanders ignore misconduct when they disagree with department policy

In public, previously un-reported recommendations, Austin's Office of Police Oversight earlier this month found it necessary to remind APD commanders that, "When presented with incontrovertible evidence of a policy violation, an accused employee?s chain of command should sustain the allegation related to that policy violation." Further, they declared, "This is especially true for policies that are not open to interpretation, such as those related to report writing."Although we don't know the specific referent (the OPO can see confidential investigative files the public cannot), to me, this implies that APD brass are ignoring demonstrable police misconduct. It's not the first time.In this instance, the context was an alleged use of force incident from Christmas Day 2019 resulting in an arrest for "Pedestrian in the Roadway" and sustained excessive force allegations against Officers Christopher Williams and Jeffrey Hutchison for which they received an oral reprimand...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on October 26, 2020 (boomark / email).