Police! (and Municipal Courts)

Both city departments we visited this past week pulled out all the stops to show off their services.  We visited the main Municipal Court and the main Police Department located next to each other between 7th and 8th streets, directly next to I35. In the next two years, the Municipal Court (which has outgrown the space available) will be moving to the corner of I35 and St. Johns. There the court will have more space for operations as well as parking for visitors and clients of the court. The Police Department will then take over the space vacated by the Municipal Court.

Judge Evelyn McKee is the presiding judge for the Municipal court. She is an obviously experienced, gracious, and no-nonsense judge. She and her Court Clerk, Rebecca Stark, took us through a set of multiple choice questions to help us learn about how the court works.

In summary: the bulk of the cases the court handles are traffic cases. However there are some city ordinance, state code violation and civil cases taken to this court. There are close to 500,000 cases filed annually. The Municipal Court collected about $34,000,000  in fines during the last fiscal year. The Austin police department is not the only department to bring cases to municipal court. Other entities bringing cases to the Municipal Court include DPS, Parks and Recreation, Animal Control, Austin Fire Department, Water Conservation, AISD police department, and TABC.

Austin has a community Court which handles close to 1,000 cases per month. The court covers most of downtown. It is a specialty court that handles "Quality of life offenses" - i.e. homeless people and partiers. The court focuses on low-level offenses by repeat offenders, mainly: public intoxication, minor in possession of alcohol, and leaving human waste on sidewalks, streets, and alleys.
The offenders will get help, if necessary from on-staff social workers. Offenders perform up to 260,000 hours community service each year.

The Austin Police Department is probably one of the most visible of all city departments. The chief, Art Acevedo, is well-known from his appearances on the evening news and in the local newspaper. 
He and his main staff were on hand to meet with us. His chief of staff told us that the building that currently houses the police department was originally designed as the new public library. When the city decided that they needed a new police station more than a new public library, the library design was handed over to the police department. Thus we have a police department with a huge atrium - which takes up much needed space for offices!

The department underwent a large reorganization in 2009. Now there are four police bureaus: Headquarters, Central, North and South. Statistics provided by the police department state that Austin is the fifth safest city in the United States. Projections are that the Austin population grows 2.25% each year. Thus Austin may have a population of over 1 million by 2025. Since 2000 the Austin population has grown 18% and calls for police service have increased by 61%.

Chief Acevedo spoke to us at length and with passion about his desire to improve the police department. One initiative underway is to have all police officers carry the same weapon. The new weapon will be a 40 caliber Smith and Wesson Military and Police gun. (I went to McBride's on Saturday and was told by the salesman/ex-police officer that the S&W is a solid, reliable, and mid-range cost weapon.) Chief Acevedo would also like to see more weapons training for his officers. He is considering applying for stimulus money for a mobile target range. He answered Academy students' questions comfortably and with the panache of an experienced flack catcher.

We spent the last part of the evening outside visiting with police personnel. The mounted police (a man and a woman) brought two of their ten horses. The SWAT team (quite muscular) were there with their assault vehicles - one from the 1970s and a brand new vehicle with all modern bells and whistles. We were able to sit inside a police cruiser and see how the on board video and computer work. All in all an impressive display.