Office of Police Oversight Community Event, APD Use of Force
The Office of Police Oversight hosted a community event to review Austin Police Department use of force policies, collect input, and make new recommendations.
The virtual Zoom meeting was held on April 28, 2021 from 6 - 7:30 p.m. A recording of the meeting is available here.
Meeting Summary
The Office of Police Oversight and Reimagining Public Safety (RPS) employees facilitated a community event in order to present OPO preliminary findings and recommendations on 6 APD use of force policies.
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Restrict shooting at moving vehicles
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Exhausting all alternatives before shooting
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De-escalation
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Duty to intervene in cases of improper or excessive use of force
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Banning chokeholds and strangleholds
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Warning before shooting
This community outreach effort is part of OPO’s responsibility to review and produce recommendations –grounded with community input—on the General Orders, APD’s policy manual. OPO is actively seeking the contribution and input from members of our diverse community. We are committed to elevating lived experiences with policing in Austin and other voices that have been overlooked for too long. You can read more about this project here.
Community members were encouraged to express their thoughts, questions, or concerns through various means, including speaking aloud and commenting in the virtual chat. Live interpretation was available in American Sign Language and Spanish. Community members also participated in a survey on existing APD use of force policies and OPO’s new recommended changes. You can participate in the survey by May 31, 2021 here. OPO encourages you to share the survey widely with other local community members.
All public feedback will be collected until May 31, at which point OPO will begin to analyze and integrate community input into the final policy recommendations. OPO hopes to send the final policy recommendations to City leadership and APD by August 2021. To register for the upcoming community events on this topic on May 12, May 19, and May 26, visit here.