Posted on 11/14/2003 5:15:14 AM PST by Arrowhead1952
Austin police practice 'different brand of law enforcement' in East Austin, report says
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Friday, November 14, 2003
Grand jurors who indicted an Austin police officer in connection with an on-duty shooting said in a report released Thursday that they are troubled by "a different brand of law enforcement" in the city's minority communities and called on officials to begin racial healing.
The document, signed by each of the 12 jury members, also raises concerns about a tendency among top Austin Police Department leaders to assign younger, inexperienced officers to those areas.
The two-page report was an unusual plea to public officials by grand jury members to take action in healing a longstanding community problem: strained relations between police and minorities.
"In the course of our term, our grand jury did not have the time, resources or expertise to investigate everything that we heard that we did not like," the report said. The grand jury did not cite specific incidents. "As citizens and members of a larger community, we feel we have a duty to alert you to certain problems that we have seen and ask that you and others in our community address them."
The report was presented to state District Judge Brenda Kennedy but said all government officials are responsible for fixing the problem. Grand jurors did not offer specific solutions and said it was not in their purview to do so.
The document comes three weeks after the same grand jury indicted officer Scott Glasgow on a charge of criminally negligent homicide in the shooting of a man in East Austin on June 14.
Glasgow and police officials have said he shot Jessie Lee Owens after getting hung in the door of a car Owens was driving and that Owens began driving the car, which had been reported stolen, down the street.
The indictment accuses Glasgow, who is scheduled to have an initial court appearance today, of taking a series of steps that led to the fatal encounter. Owens, 20, was shot five times.
The report on law enforcement also said Austin boasts of diversity and tolerance but that "we find it difficult, even painful, to have a public conversation about race and the distrust that exists between certain segments in our city."
City officials, including Police Chief Stan Knee, said they want to meet with the grand jury in coming weeks to more specifically discuss the members' concerns.
City Manager Toby Futrell said leaders have been working for years to mend racial tensions but acknowledged that three shootings involving local law enforcement during the past 13 months have added to the struggle.
"We're at a point where we're trying to hang onto and build trust," Futrell said. "We're going to have to work even harder now."
Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, whose office also is named specifically in the call for racial healing, said in a statement that the report is "a thoughtful and disturbing document that needs to be read and considered by everybody who cares about Austin and our future."
Patrols questioned
Grand jurors said they had a duty as Austin and Travis County residents to raise their concerns.
Most of the members -- Gordon Rubinett, Freddie Maxwell, Jimmy Raines, Betsy Davis, Terry Ross, Elliott Burrell, Julius Gordon, Gaylynn Sneed, Cindy Simar, Mary Louise Tovar, Joe C. Holmes and Michael Wolf -- did not return phone messages at their homes or did not want to comment. Grand jury members are impaneled by state district judges based on recommendations by five commissioners whom judges appoint to recruit jurors. The report said the group represents different faiths, ages and races and collectively has more than 400 years' residence in the county.
Rubinett, a former attorney, was the group's foreman, and Maxwell, the Austin Police Department's first black captain, who is now retired, was assistant foreman.
The grand jurors said that although local law enforcement agencies may be well intentioned, they are placing officers with the fewest skills and least experience in situations without proper preparation.
"Young police officers with limited training and little life experience in interacting with those who look different than they look are often assigned to patrol in these minority neighborhoods," the report said. "This is not fair to these officers or to our community."
Knee said Thursday that much of the department's patrol force is indeed young, but officials said the city was forced to hire new officers in recent years because of rapid growth.
Of the 428 officers assigned patrol duties, 199 have more than two years' experience, department records show. Among the most recent cadet class of about 60 officers, nearly half had some prior military experience, and about half had bachelor's or master's degrees.
"We are getting more mature individuals," Knee said.
He said the department is constantly looking for ways to improve cultural and ethnic diversity training and will continue work in that area. He said leaders are planning to invite the community to participate in a brown-bag lunch with cadets during an upcoming academy and will have cadets organize events with East Austin children.
"I am saying that there is room for improvement," Knee said. "Training is an ongoing, evolving scene."
No specifics
Nelson Linder, president of the Austin chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, criticized the grand jury for not taking a harder stance on the police department and not issuing specific recommendations for helping solve racial problems.
"They are addressing our public institutions, which is a good thing, but the problem is that they don't say, 'How do we address this?' " Linder said.
He said the report also doesn't say anything many people don't already know and strongly resembles findings of groups studying the same issue during the late 1990s.
For example, local religious leaders and former Mayor Kirk Watson in December 1998 also said one of the key contributions to racism is the denial that it exists and the refusal on the part of many white people to take it seriously.
The same year, the City Council approved an effort to smooth race relations and build confidence in the police force by installing video cameras in police cars and adopting a citizens training advisory committee to recommend changes in police academy curriculum with an emphasis in cultural values.
The effort grew out of an incident during a 1995 Valentine's party in which 80 police officers were accused of using excessive force on black teens and young adults.
In concluding its report Thursday, grand jury members said city and county officials still have work to do.
"If Austin and Travis County are to continue to be a place where we want our children to raise their families, it is incumbent upon every member of the community . . . to open up this conversation about race and distrust that runs in our community," the report said. "We need to ask ourselves some tough questions and work together to find answers."
Does anyone have any good ideas of how to ship all the libs to the San Fran-way-out-yonder left coast area? We have more than Texas needs. I just hope the redistricting is approved. We may get rid of some or all of the left leaning state officials.
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