AUSTIN (Talk1370.com) -- "Unlike any this city or department had seen."
Friday, the Austin Police Department released an After Action Report following the summer 2020 protests in downtown Austin. The report detailed the department's response to the protests, along with the results of the response.
"I feel confident in releasing this report and its inclusion of implementation steps for each focus area," said APD Chief Joseph Chacon. "We have accomplished much in the past two years and fully recognize we have much more to achieve."
The report identified 17 critical areas of analysis and lists problem identification, findings, recommendations, and subsequent implementation of improvements. Key areas that the department has focused its improvement on include de-escalation techniques and training, improvements to the department's mobile field force, and training for an integrated response within various APD units. The department has also discontinued the use of bean bag/less-lethal munitions for crowd management activities.
"I can promise you that we will never see another response similar to the one in the summer of 2020," said Chacon.