The attention of Austinites is apparently for sale, and police associations are buying it. Recently, an attorney affiliated with the Austin Police Association filed a motion in the criminal case against an Austin police officer accused of injuring a protester during the 2020 protests. They claim District Attorney José Garza failed to disclose discussions about the city’s potential criminal liability for authorizing the use of less-lethal weapons (a theory of liability that had been publicly reported in the press long ago). The association’s lawyer argues that this information would’ve supported their theory – that the culpability for the event may be the fault of training or equipment as opposed to an individual officer. Basically, the officer may have fired the weapon, but was poorly trained and incompetent? This sounds like a dumb legal maneuver – because it is. So then why do it?
Because police associations want Austinites to turn their eyes and anger toward the first Travis County D.A. in living memory who has won convictions against police officers who break the law and harm the public. This is about avoiding accountability – not about a “rogue” elected official. The worst part is, their plan worked like clockwork. The attorney announced the motion on X, local and statewide police associations called for D.A. Garza’s resignation, Fox News, the NY Post, and local TV stations reported the claims in the motion as fact.
State politicians who make “woke D.A.s” a regular talking point quickly exploited the opening. Gov. Greg Abbott suggested he’ll pardon the officer no matter what a jury decides. Now all our eyes are turned away from the actual issues APD faces: a lack of accountability for misconduct, a machismo culture that repels new recruits, scandalous leadership turmoil at the academy, and an utter lack of solutions for purported staffing problems.
Between 2013 and 2022, police misconduct cost the city around $73 million from civil litigation alone. During the George Floyd protests, officers’ use of force caused a traumatic brain injury, broken bones, and permanent disfigurement. In 2019,a report documented how officers misrepresented clearance rates to claim credit for resolving rape cases they never solved. The police association’s job is to protect these officers. The district attorney’s job is to prosecute crimes, regardless of the uniform of those who committed them.
Further still, the police associations don’t even really buy their own concern about less-lethal weapons. Last year, they backed a bill that expanded the justification for the use of less-lethal weapons as long as the use was “consistent with their training.” Prosecutions in Austin from the 2020 protests were their exhibit A in pushing their case to lawmakers, so it’s obvious the city’s training deficit wasn’t news to them.
Meanwhile, we’re about to enter a budget cycle that will force millions in cuts to social services, parks, libraries, pools, and more – all to fund raises for the police embedded in a contract that the city couldn’t afford the day it was signed. To that end, their attacks on public officials, however spurious, serve another purpose: to intimidate lawmakers who might stand up to them and threaten to hold them accountable for their actions, or to the public’s expectations of safety in return for all of our money.
Austin cannot – by law – reduce the police budget, but we’re not required to expand it beyond the city’s ability to pay, which City Hall has now done after voters rejected a tax increase. But the mayor and City Council fear being attacked like José Garza, so they so far refused to stand up to the bullying. And with a media environment this gullible to their nonsense, it’s no wonder so few politicians dare to follow José Garza’s lead. The budget-busting wage increases Austin police are now entitled to aren’t a separate issue from their lack of accountability, they’re the flip side of the same coin.
Savannah Lee is the director of policy and operations with Equity Action, where she works on issues of police accountability and public safety.
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This article appears in April 10 • 2026.