-The only reason equity's on the table in Austin,
the only reason defunding police is on the table in Austin
is because of years and years of grassroots
work pressuring the city council,
and only this year because it is now a more public,
national cry did we make these advances.
-Rojas is a member of Communities of Color United,
a coalition of grassroots organizations
that has been advocating for racial equity
and divesting in the police budget since 2015.
At a council meeting in August, over 200 constituents turned out
to voice their opinion on the idea.
-This is the moment to make deep
and structural changes to the city budget.
-This is an opportunity to further shrink the police force
and to continue investing in alternatives to policing.
-The city council took a small step,
after the murder of George Floyd,
to try to hold APD accountable
and it seems we'll continue to only get small steps.
-And the council agreed.
Austin had one of the biggest cuts
to their police budget in the country.
-All of the hands raised in favor.
It passes unanimously.
-The city reallocated significant funding
from its police department to other city programs.
The council voted unanimously in August
to eliminate the upcoming cadet classes,
diverting millions to programs that address homelessness,
mental health, and family violence prevention.
The budget also moved programs from the Austin PD jurisdiction.
Councilmember Greg Casar introduced the proposal.
-We've been working on these issues for so long,
but we were always so short on the resources
and, when we finally decided that we would spend
just somewhat less on the strategy of locking folks up
and a little bit more on community safety solutions,
we saw that we can make a really transformative change.
So, now, today, in Austin, if you call 911, you hear,
"Do you need fire, police, EMS, or mental health"?
So that mental health responders can go to those calls
where, really, a police officer
is not the best trained person to do that.
-But Rebecca Sanchez,
another member of Communities of Color United,
feels as though the city isn't doing enough
to look at the role of policing in the community.
-This conversation, about defunding the police,
and everything that moves with it,
like a lot of us, politicians involved,
like totally moved away from what this centered around,
which is Black deaths.
So, how do we stop the Black death is the question
that everybody should be grappling with
and trying to figure out.
And, instead, it became a PR opportunity
for defunding offices, administration.
All of these things that, you know,
layer up to the Jenga of it, instead of really reconstructing
"How do we keep people safer"?
Because we keep bringing that
to the forefront of the conversation
and everybody's like, "But you defunded the police".
But none of the mechanisms of policing,
none of the surveillance,
none of the databases, none of the tools.
-I know the times are difficult, right now.
I know the policing profession is under scrutiny
and it's under reimagination and redesign,
and I know a lot of that is taking place here in Austin,
but I stand here with confidence,
knowing that APD will come out of this a strong agency.
-The department is going through a leadership change as well.
Austin Police Chief Brian Manly
will be leaving his post at the end of March.
He faced harsh criticism after police killed
an unarmed man, Michael Ramos;
and seriously injured nonviolent protestors last year.
-It's never just been like just defund the police.
It's that we have ideas of how the city can do better
by its communities of color.
So like there was all this kind of like,
"How do we make sure that departments
that we know communities of color need
and actually will keep them safe and keep them secure"?
Things like, you know, public health,
things like parks & rec, and make sure
that there's programming or after-school programs
or, you know, all these other sorts of things
that like looks at the well-being
and not the criminalization of our communities.
-The council recently purchased hotels to house people
experiencing homelessness with funds from its Housing
and Planning Department's general obligation bonds,
and will use some money from the reoccurring fund,
taken from the police department's budget,
to provide services to the residents of the hotel.
Councilmember Casar said their goal is to buy a hotel
in every single city council district,
so it's not falling on any one area.
-The strategy on homelessness in most American cities
has been to just move people around.
And the goal now is, "Let's actually deal with this
with homes, rather than just handcuffs,"
because, if we actually house people
that are living on the street, we can reduce homelessness.
And, right now, during the pandemic,
we have lots of these hotels that are sitting half empty
or even more empty because tourism has dropped so much,
and so it creates this real opportunity
for cities to buy those hotels
and already, immediately, have housing options where,
then, we can provide services and connect people to jobs
and permanently end their state of homelessness,
thereby reducing the amount of homelessness in our community.
-But the change in the police budget has already met backlash.
At a Back the Blue pledge in Houston,
Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick responded to the cuts by saying.
-The city of Austin is a disaster,
if you haven't been there.
A great city.
Now, one of the most dangerous cities in America,
and definitely in Texas.
-The budget reallocation started months ago,
but it hasn't dramatically changed the city's safety,
according to FBI data.
Ultimately, both community activists
and city council members
are reimagining what public safety means.
-We're going to be able to show, as Austin, that,
by stepping up and saying,
"We need to think of safety as more than
just more police officers," that we'll be able to show
that that actually makes us a safer city.
-We're really reimagining public safety
and we have amazing ideas of how you could take from policing.
Not just take, but actually go back to investing
and advancing equity in our communities,
to go way more upstream,
and we're in that process right now.
-It's important to recognize acts of racism
that have occurred.
It's important to recognize mass incarceration in our community.
It's important to recognize
that we need to reduce police violence.
But then, it's also really important to move
from that recognition to action,
and that's what we're working on getting done this year.