Michael Stone became the first Austin Police officer fired from Interim Chief Brian Manley‘s empire on Friday when the six-year veteran was canned for violating seven different administrative policies. Stone found himself before Internal Affairs in October after it was discovered that he engaged in a series of troubling interactions with an ex-girlfriend, who is also an APD officer. Particularly, Stone had broken into her Kyle home in mid-July after the ex-girlfriend (referred to in Manley’s memo as Officer X) informed him that she wanted to split up, then showed up again a few weeks later and crept around her property for a while – eventually eliciting a call from a neighbor to Kyle Police. During IA interviews about both incidents, Manley said, Stone provided a series of misleading statements about his actions around Ofc. X’s house, and failed to notify his chain of command about his run-in with KPD. It was later discovered that Stone neglected to notify his chain of a second run-in with KPD, which occurred in May 2015 after a disturbance call to Ofc. X’s house. Manley docked Stone with seven infractions – Purpose and Scope, Responsibility to Know and Comply, Criminal Mischief, General Conduct, Honesty, Acts Bringing Discredit Upon the Department, Cooperating With Assigned Investigators, and Reporting Procedure – and called his “collective dishonesty … intolerable.” He said that Stone’s entire chain of command recommended his indefinite suspension, yet the officer “accepted no responsibility for his actions.” Stone has until Jan. 16 to appeal, but Austin Police Association President Ken Casaday said that won’t be happening.
APD’s Bad Breakup
A version of this article appeared in print on Jan 13, 2017 with the headline: APD’s Bad Breakup
This article appears in January 13 • 2017.