Austin Police Department Chief Brian Manley announced his resignation from the department during a Feb. 12 press conference at APD HQ. (Photo by John Anderson)
Austin police Chief Brian Manley announced Friday that he will retire on March 28, following a year in which criminal justice activists and community members have called for him to resign. That call began over how Manley handled revelations that a former assistant chief regularly used racist language, then accelerated following the violent response to Black Lives Matter protesters his officers engaged in over the summer.
Born and raised in Austin, Manley began his career as an APD patrol officer in 1991. He steadily moved up the chain, serving as lieutenant, commander, assistant chief, and, finally, chief of staff to Art Acevedo before being named interim chief when Acevedo departed to lead the Houston Police Department in 2016. He rose to national prominence for his handling of the three-week bombing spr
In a contentious email exchange with Council Member
Alison Alter, Austin Police Department Chief
Brian Manley declined to proactively investigate to determine if anyone from the department participated in the Jan. 6
Capitol insurrection in Washington, D.C.
In emails obtained by the
Chronicle, the CM also asked the chief to send a message to his officers condemning the participation of law enforcement in the uprising that led to at least five deaths. As of Jan. 16, according to reporting by progressive legal news site The Appeal, 32 people from 15 states who took part in the Jan. 6
Stop the Steal Trump rally have been outed as law enforcement officers. I suggest that you make clear to every officer and staff member where our department leadership stands, Alter wrote in an email copied to her staff, City Manager
Save Austin Now s petition to reinstate Austin s camping ban failed to meet the signature threshold for the November ballot (Photo by John Anderson)
1) Jan. 23: Council Nixes Low-Level Pot Busts In 2019, the Texas Legislature legalized hemp, defined as cannabis with a THC concentration of less than 0.3%. Because the test to determine that percentage is not widely available, many district and county attorneys subsequently decided not to prosecute low-level possession of marijuana cases. At the beginning of 2020, Council unanimously voted to end such arrests (which are already discretionary) in Austin; however, Austin Police Department Chief Brian Manley pushed back, saying possession is still illegal and APD will still enforce marijuana laws. Even so, though arrests are still possible, there s no longer a possibility of a court case or jail time.