First, why is there a staffing problem? Well aside from the War on Cops, that is...
Gov. Greg Abbott chimed in on the issue Monday, tweeting in part, "This is caused by Austin's cuts to police funding & it endangers lives in Austin. The State must consider laws that take over policing parts of Austin."
The Austin City Council voted to cut some funds from APD in August. A total of $150 million from APD's budget will be reallocated. Of that, $49 million will be diverted to other programs, $21 million was reallocated immediately and $80 million will be reallocated later. Those cuts also included cutting some future cadet classes.
Add to that the continuing attrition in the ranks.
Casaday said that the canceled classes, coupled with what he believes is an increase in APD officers resigning, is causing the recent rise in 911 response times.
Recently in downtown Austin, when a "shots fired" call came in, there were no officers available to respond, because they were already dealing with other situations.
And if you don't have a shots fired kind of emergency, you will wait for cops to show up. Hours for burglary, trespass assault, etc.
So. You need cops to answer 911 calls. And if you make cops think that they are not welcome in your city, they might just leave. So how is that defunding of police thing working out?
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