Joseph Chacon will retire from the Austin Police Department in two weeks, ending a career at APD that spanned more than two decades and saw the El Paso native rise up the chain of command from beat cop to chief of police.
Chacon was named interim chief in 2021, succeeding Brian Manley, who took over the department in 2018. Chacon survived a months-long national search to become the only internal APD candidate up for the job. City Council made it official in October of 2021, awarding him the title on a 9-2 vote.
Chacon’s tenure leading APD is one marked by missed opportunity. He was by no means a bad chief. Under his command, the department instituted a body-worn camera policy that requires some “critical incident” video be released within 10 days; he rejoined the Austin/Travis County Sexual Assault Response and Resource Team, a collaboration of law enforcement and survivor support organizations tasked with coordinating community response to sex crimes; and he testified against House Bill 1900, the Texas law that makes it nearly impossible for cities to decrease police budgets.
On the broader challenges facing APD’s response to sexual assaults, Council Member Alison Alter – who has led on the issue – reports that under Chacon, APD “has moved in the right direction.” Implementation of changes mandated by the legal settlement between the city and survivors of sexual assault, as well as recommendations from a third-third-party report, are slowly advancing. “That work is happening,” Alter told the Chronicle. “Folks are talking in a way that is open and transparent.”
In many ways, our previous two chiefs fared much worse than Chacon. Manley’s reputation skyrocketed following his leadership during the serial bombings of 2018 but was tarnished by the final years of his career. He literally went on vacation in 2019 after one of his longtime deputies was revealed to be an open racist, rather than dealing with the problem immediately. And he was roundly criticized for his performance in 2020 while his officers responded with disproportionate levels of violence to protesters demonstrating against police violence following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Michael Ramos in Austin.
As for Art Acevdeo, who preceded Manley, there’s a reason he’s bounced from job to job since departing Austin for Houston PD in 2016. He ruled over the fifth floor at APD during a period in which the Forensics Department was so poorly managed that its DNA lab had to be closed down, a shameful failure that contributed to the shattered trust between APD and survivors of sexual assault – a wound that has not yet healed.
Chacon’s record does not contain failures of this magnitude – but is that good enough? Chacon assumed leadership of APD at a pivotal moment in the department’s history – at a pivotal moment in the history of policing – and did little to seize on the promise of that moment. Instead, he settled for mere adequacy. Chacon summed up his own record at the press conference announcing his resignation: “I consider myself a law-and-order chief, as much as I have been responsive to our community. … Law and order is very important.”
That’s the key takeaway from Chacon’s tenure offered by Chris Harris, a local criminal justice advocate who has worked alongside a coalition of advocacy organizations determined to improve policing in Austin. “A lot of missed opportunities,” Harris told us. “We have seen clear institutional and electoral support for real policing reform in recent years, but little has materialized.”
“I consider myself a law-and-order chief, as much as I have been responsive to our community. … Law and order is very important.” – Outgoing APD Chief Joseph Chacon
Consider some of the events preceding Chacon’s appointment as chief. APD’s DNA lab was still shuttered and its Sex Crimes Unit still severely under-supported. The department was still reeling from a third-party investigation that uncovered a culture of racism and sexism that festered under the threat of retaliation. City Council responded with a suite of reforms intended to root out the causes of that toxicity and transform the police force into one that embraced the generally liberal ideas about 21st century policing held by most Austinites.
Months later, demonstrators flooded the streets of Downtown to demand a less violent, more accountable police force. As those protests waned, José Garza was sworn in as Travis County District Attorney – bringing the progressive prosecutor movement to Austin. Six months later, a ballot measure supported by right-wing groups that would have exploded the size of APD’s patrol force cratered. Earlier this year, Austin voters rejected a police oversight ballot measure embraced by pro-police groups in favor of one supported by police reformers.
All of these events could have been interpreted as signals that the people of Austin and their elected council members – finally out from under the thumb of the powerful and influential police lobby – were primed for a real change agent at APD. Someone who would be bold enough to go toe-to-toe with the Austin Police Association and insist that the Council-initiated reforms were not only necessary on a basic representative democracy level, but also vital to the future of the department.
If Chacon received those signals, it wasn’t always evident in his leadership. Rather than swimming in the same direction as Garza, the D.A. boldly charting a path toward a fairer and more equitable justice system, Chacon often stood in his way or did little to support him. Rather than advocate, behind the scenes or from the bully pulpit, for more robust civilian oversight of police, he sat on the sidelines and let the marginal views of the APA dominate the conversation inside City Hall. A recent third-party report examining efforts to change the training offered at the Austin Police Academy – a key aspect of Council’s long-term project to “reimagine policing” – found that efforts were stalled due to a “lack of executive leadership” at APD.
The promise for change is not totally lost, however. Council still seems committed to the ideal, even if the Mayor Kirk Watson council is decidedly less supportive of such efforts than the councils led by former Mayor Steve Adler. Robin Henderson, who was named assistant chief by Manley and chief of staff by Chacon, will now take over the mantle as interim chief.
It is not yet clear if Henderson is interested in or capable of leading that charge. But it is likely that Council will first hire a permanent city manager before hiring a permanent police chief, so Henderson could have a year or more to demonstrate she is the police-change agent the majority of Austinites have been searching for.
This article appears in August 25 • 2023.