Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo

Theres several investigations, 1 theres a criminal investigation the district attorneys office has asked
us to conduct into the arresting officers conduct. 2. We were never apprised or made aware of as an
organization of the actual conversation in the back seat of that car; thats never been investigated.
Conversation in the car. 3. The level of force that was used with no injury or complaint was handled as a
level three process and when I look at that video, its something that should have been elevated. We
need to look at how the chain of command made that decision and made it to handle it informally. And
we also have to look at our process to see; incidents like that need to be elevated and so weve got a lot
of moving parts. And then the last thing is we have administrative investigations into both officers and
their work product and the work they have been doing for the past six months, and thats going to take
weeks to go through everything we have on video and audio and thats going to include some pretty
extensive audits. Its a lot of work to do, including our process, and well see how we can make it better
and were getting to work.

A lot of things went through my head. Anger. Sickened. Saddened. You know, thats a stop for a 15 miles
per hour speeding ticket and how do you approach something like that so quickly. When you think
about all the things going on in the country and think about all the good work thats being done here,
you get the here we go again reaction that so much good work that goes on will be overshadowed by
one incident and it tells you when we stand with people of color, when this police chief stands up with
people of color and I get maligned by folks, people dont realize that society is not the perfect utopia
people think it is. Theres a lot of issues in terms of race relations and a lot of issues in terms of race and
socioeconomic standing in this nation and were not immune from it as a profession. We all need to
admit that. Every segment of society is touched by this issue and we need to get to work and admit it or
well never get through it and past it.

Its just not within policing, we as Americans all need to start recognizing and have an admission of the
decades and many, many generations of disenfranchisement, especially of the African-American
community and the biass we have. Im proud of the fact that despite an incident or incidents that occur,
I know that the vast majority of our police officers do good work. But Im also willing to say there are
problems. But too many people in society look at things through the prism of their own circumstances
and they can, want to deny that racism, prejudice, bias exists. And that in and of itself is a problem. I can
tell you that our police department, our culture that we have is one of engagement, one of
acknowledgement, and one of continuing to work tirelessly overcome these issues. Im glad that the
Department of Justice, the community oriented policing services directors office and I spoke and hes
going to help us bring some of the best training in the country to help continue to create these open
spaces for open dialogue conversations on bias, unconscious bias, explicit bias, so we can continue to do
our best to do better. Having said that, well never achieve perfection because the human condition is
imperfect. And Ive got to create a process in which people, especially people of color, will feel
comfortable about coming forward when they have that kind of conversation and hear what that officer
has to say in the back of that police car, or when a traffic ticket stop gets escalated very quickly in broad
daylight at a Wendys parking lot. Ive got to create, Ive got to do something to convince people that
they need to step forward and let us know so we can deal with these issues.

I will tell you that having a meeting for the first time when I have our labor leaders in the room with the
same young black activists that they were beating me up, not too long ago, for having a press
conference after a *unintelligible* the death of David Jospeh. That was a three and a half hour meeting
and to see where we started that meeting and where we ended, you know out of adversity you can
either surrender or you can use it as an opportunity and as a challenge to do better and move forward
and I saw some things. If you read the statement of labor that have occurred that wouldnt have
occurred a month ago. Im hopeful, I never give up hope. The day I give up hope is the day I tell this
community that its time I am voluntarily moving on. I still have a lot of hope in my heart, vinegar in my
gut, and I want to use this to continue moving in the right direction.