Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 4032 AMERICAN POLICE BEAT: DECEMBER 2016 Chief has strong words for commanders – leaked audio Some say he’s doing what needs to be done, while others question a confrontational management style I n Austin, Texas recent- ly, two relatively recent use of force cases that created controversy were addressed by Chief Art Acevedo in a closed door meeting he had with com- mand staff. Unbeknownst to the boss, one of the commanders se- cretly recorded the chief’s statements and leaked them to the Austin American States- man. Audio of the tense meeting is available online but here are some of Chief Acevedo’s comments. The two incidents in- volved a naked teenager who was unarmed at the time he was fatally shot by an Austin Police officer and an arrest made after officers, according to Acevedo, failed to de-escalate a simple traffic stop involving an African- American school teacher. Both incidents were caught on dash cam and other video. We have got to raise our game,” Acevedo said in the August 10 meeting. “You are commanders. If you don’t like it, you can move on, or you can de- mote. I’m not going to hold that against anybody if it’s not for you, but we have got to step up.” “Ihavegivennine years of my life to the Austin Police Department,” Ace- vedo told his com- manders. “Nine years aren’t going to go down the drain because we have people in this room that don’t want to do the hard lifting, that don’t want to be the bad guys. “Sorry, we have to be the bad guys sometimes.” “The union got all pissed off because I fired the officer that shot the naked teenager. Some of you might have got- ten pissed off. “I’m going to tell you right now, if we have another Freeman tomorrow, that is what’s going to happen. I didn’t lose a minute of sleep. “If you can’t handle a kid in broad daylight, naked, and your first instinct is to come out with your gun, and your next instinct is to shoot the kid dead, you don’t need to be a cop. I don’t give a shit how nice you are.” Editor’s note: In the encounter with the school teacher, a pa- trol car video shows the traffic stop escalated rapidly in the 7 seconds from when an officer first commands the 26-year- old King to close her door and to place her feet inside her car to when he forcibly removes her from the driver’s seat, pulls her across a vacant parking space and pushes her to the asphalt. T hat was a horrific vid- eo, and if you don’t look at that video and aren’t horrified by what you saw, shame on you,” Acevedo said. “Because I guarantee you, if that was my wife, we’d have some problems.” “I am sickened that some- how people are still trying to justify Richter. Nobody wearing stripes, or bars or stars should even think about justifying a woman — that the reason that woman got pulled out of that car is because she had the audacity to tell him to hurry up.” “She wasn’t go- ing with the pro- gram,” he said. “You know what? Millennials ask questions, so get over it. If you are going to order somebody to do something, you better have a damn good reason if you are going to take them to jail. “That was such an easy stop to de-escalate.” “It’s been nine years, guys. Does anybody in this room have any doubt how I would have reacted to that tape had it been brought to my atten- tion?” Corporal Ken Casaday, president of the Austin Po- lice Association, said for at least the past couple of years, some commanders have complained they do not have a voice with Acevedo. “They want to work with the chief, but there have been so many issues,” Casa- day said. “You can see the way they were treated on the audio recording. It would be very hard to follow a leader like that, that accepts no feedback and says your mo- rale doesn’t mean anything to me. If I treated my em- ployees like that, I wouldn’t have any employees.” “Nine years aren’t going to go down the drain because we have people in this room that don’t want to do the hard lifting, that don’t want to be the bad guys.” Austin (TX) Police Chief Art Acevedo. Image via Youtube. Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things. – Peter Drucker LearntheSkills YouNeedfor Advancement Earn your Master’s in Law Enforcement & Public Safety Leadership 100% Online 20 month program Top 100 university All coursework completed online Discounts for law enforcement association/union members Official academic member of the Grand Lodge Fraternal Order of Police University Consortium Speak to an AdvisorToday » (877) 946-4731 | CriminalJustice.SanDiego.edu NFOPU CONSORTIUM SCHOOL NFOPU CONSORTIUM SCHOOL