This weekend marks one year since thousands of protesters flooded the streets in downtown Austin and demanded a series of law-and-order reforms and budget changes, some of which they ended up getting.
While the local demonstrations mirrored racial justice protests in other cities after the death of George Floyd under the knee of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin on May 25, 2020, local participants also had Austin-specific reasons to be there, as they pointed to concerns they d been voicing for years about the Austin Police Department.
Bubbling with anger and viewing the moment as a vehicle for transformation, they persuaded the City Council to change the Police Department s budget by cutting $21 million outright and setting aside an additional $129 million to be vetted for potential cuts down the road. Since then, $45 million of that larger amount has been cut by moving various departments and functions out of police control.
Kerem Yuce/AFP/Getty Images
A year after George Floyd’s murder and the worldwide protests it sparked, more than half of US states have passed reform bills, altering policies like use of force, creating new rules about tracking misconduct, and mandating officer interventions during aggressive encounters. Major cities even made moves to aggressively reimagine policing.
Some of these changes have been tentative; some have been reversed; others have run up against lawsuits and backlash and red tape; some have been far less than what local protesters have called for. Changing policing, it has become apparent, will not be instantaneous or easy.
Print this article
The Texas House passed a bill aimed at punishing cities that choose to defund their police departments.
“Let’s support public safety in this state. Let’s support our police. Let’s back the blue,”
The bill, which passed by a 90-49 vote, defines “defunding local government” by comparing how much money and personnel was allocated to law enforcement against the previous year. If approved, it would punish jurisdictions that make cuts by capping property tax rates in the city and cutting the funding from sales-tax revenue that the state allocates to the jurisdiction’s law-enforcement budget.
Breathe rally in Austin encourages action after Derek Chauvin verdict
Two days after former police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty of murdering George Floyd, racial equality advocates called on Austinites to keep taking action. Author: Mike Marut (KVUE) Updated: 10:26 PM CDT April 22, 2021
AUSTIN, Texas Just days after a jury found former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin guilty of second-degree murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter in the death of George Floyd, Austin Justice Coalition called on the community to continue making progress. It was one very small moment that the justice system seemed to be working, Chas Moore, who runs Austin Justice Coalition, said. I would challenge us to think a little bit more and beyond what happened on Tuesday, because at the same time that verdict was being read, a young lady in Columbus, Ohio, was shot.