Formal complaint: Purpose and scope—Community policing and other policy violations
Complainant alleges that Austin Police Department officers shoved, maced pushed, arrested and shot rubber bullets at protesters who showed no threat. The Office of Police Oversight recommends that this allegation receive an A classification.
PDF Content
Disclaimer: The following text was extracted from the PDF file to make this document more accessible. This machine-generated content may contain styling errors due to redactions. In some instances, text may not load if the original file is a scanned image or has not been made searchable. For the full version of the document, please view the PDF.OF
CITY
AUSTIN
OFFICE OF
NOTICE OF FORMAL
POLICE OVERSIGHT
COMPLAINT
ICMS #: 2020-0941
June 9, 2020
Complaint: The Office of Police Oversight received an email complaint from
stating as follows:
To whom it may concern,
I saw Council Member Kathie Tovo's post about sending videos from this past week of
protests. Please find at this link (too large to send over email) the videos that show the
response by local ADP (and I've attached the most egregious to this email where you see
officers indiscriminately macing people and shoving a woman in a medical boot).
No warnings were given to disperse nor was the amount of time we had to disperse
provided - which is required by law. Despite the protestors standing there with their hands
in the air, showing no threat, we were shoved, maced, pushed, arrested and shot at with
rubber bullets. I do not have a video of the latter given I was trying to run away and not get
shot in the face like other protestor videos/photos I've seen floating around. This is
absolutely despicable behavior and an abuse of power.
I am no longer proud to live in the city of Austin, and I'm extremely disappointed that
nothing has been done to rectify this. I no longer feel safe in this city, because of the police,
and feel those in charge must be held responsible and replaced. I have seen an increase in
police patrol around my apartment downtown, the AMLI on 2nd, and it's feeling more and
more like a police state.
Working for a major tech company, I will be sharing these videos with our leadership. Our
company employs over 5K people in Austin, and with the announcement around remote
work, it may be that our employees leave in droves to cities that actually care about people
of color. Our company will have a harder time recruiting talent if this is the culture you let
continue. I would like to see 8CantWait policies implemented, and those who have misused
their power replaced with people who can actually uphold them.
Sincerely,
This notice of formal complaint is a request for Internal Affairs to initiate an investigation in
order to determine if the employee conduct is within compliance of APD policy, Civil Service
Rules, and Municipal Civil Service Rules.
The City of Austin is committed to compliance with the American Disabilities Act.
Reasonable modifications and equal access to communications will be provided upon request.