Feds close civil rights investigation of Austin police

AUSTIN — Federal officials have closed a four-year investigation of the Austin Police Department, saying they didn't find evidence that the department had violated the law or the U.S. Constitution.

Acting City Attorney Karen Kennard was notified in a memo dated Friday from an official with the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division that the investigation was closed.

The official who wrote the letter, Jonathan M. Smith of the department's special litigation section, said Austin police have implemented nearly all recommendations the Justice Department made in 2008 regarding use of force, complaint investigation procedures, training and community relations.

The Justice Department began an investigation into the Police Department in 2007, three years after the Austin chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Texas Civil Rights Project filed a federal complaint that the department was violating citizens' civil rights.

The federal complaint by the NAACP and Civil Rights Project was prompted, in part, by a series of American-Statesman articles in 2004 revealing that from 1998 to 2003, police were twice as likely to use force against blacks as against whites and 25 percent more likely to use force against Hispanics than against whites. During that time, all but one of the 11 people who were killed by police officers were minorities.

Smith thanked the department for its voluntary implementation of federal suggestions in 2008, but also listed four areas where the department could improve.

Those recommendations include: implementing a planned "early intervention system" to identify officers with a tendency to violate police policy and use of force, having the internal affairs division conduct investigations in "an objective and probing manner," having review boards identify tactical or training issues that could be corrected to minimize uses of force against citizens, and allowing the Office of the Police Monitor to provide objective and public reports on the conduct of the internal affairs division.

Police Chief Art Acevedo on Sunday told the Austin American-Statesman that police officials have discussed all four of the recommendations with federal officials and are working on them.

"As a new chief in 2007, I welcomed the Department of Justice review as an opportunity to make a good department better," Acevedo said. "I think it's important to realize all of their recommendations had to do with processes, procedures and systems, not officer behavior."

Nelson Linder, president of the local chapter of the NAACP, said that he believed the Justice Department conducted a good investigation and that he was not disappointed with its findings.

"There is no doubt that Chief Acevedo and his team have made a lot of reforms," Linder said.

Jim Harrington, director of the Civil Rights Project, said in a statement written Saturday that because of the Justice Department investigation, the police in Austin have "changed course."

He said that "Austin now has a better and more professional police department."