Public Safety Committee getting to the ‘meat’ of policy reforms, Flannigan says

AUSTIN (KXAN) — City Council Member Jimmy Flannigan says the Public Safety Committee is going to start digging into the “meat” of its work to reshape the Austin Police Department.

Flannigan joined KXAN News Today Thursday ahead of the Thursday’s Public Safety Committee meeting.

KXAN anchor Sally Hernandez asked Flannigan about when the public can expect to see the body camera video of the police shooting of Mike Ramos. Officers shot and killed Ramos on April 24 after they responded to a 911 call in southeast Austin. The video was supposed to have been released within 60 days, according to city policy. However, on June 21 the Austin city manager delayed its release because the Office of Police Oversight had not yet seen the video.

Flannigan didn’t specify when he believed the video would be released, but pointed to it as an example of a conflict over implementing policy.

“This has been an unfortunate and common refrain where the council or the chief and the Office of Police Oversight will adopt a policy but then things go wrong in its implementation,” Flannigan said.

The Public Safety Committee is a relatively newly-formed group for city council. It formed out of the Judiciary Committee. Last month, members discussed possibilities for reform that included how the Austin Police Department responded to protests, allocating next year’s public safety budget and the future of APD cadet classes.

Flannigan said before the committee was created, members of city council were not having regular, public and formal conversations with the police chief, city manager and others.

“And so it allowed the council to approve a policy or acknowledge a policy and then move on to the next shiny object,” Flannigan said. It was at that time up to the city manager or another leader to figure out any conflicts that arose. “That is no longer going to be the case. As I spent the last two years chairing the Judicial Committee, which was converted into the Public Safety Committee, we were able to move forward the types of changes and reform that had been contemplated for 20 years but not implemented. And we pushed those to the finish line.”

He said he believes the “best use of committee work is taking council-adopted policy and following its implementation.”

He called the City Council’s unanimous backing of five items related to police reform last month an “unprecedented act,” but now the Public Safety Committee will be diving into the details of how to make policy a reality.

“What we’re going to do now is actually get to the work. We’re going to have frontline officers at the table. We’re going to have community experts at the table. We’re not inviting the manager or the chief or some of the advocates that have been the public face of the movement,” Flannigan said. “To actually go through line by line — ‘All right, here’s a question about tear gas. Here’s a question about no-knock warrants. What are you experiencing as officer in your day to day work?’ and ‘What are these experts — these legal, academic experts — saying is the right way to move forward on these ideas?'”