Community concerns over the city governments handling of the Sanders/Smith shooting on May 11th of last year and the cover-up were discussed at length. Of the issues raised, lack of accountability and a growing distrust of the Austin Police Department and city officials, were among the most prescient for the city to consider. If the city truly intends to regain public trust, especially from those sectors of community that have been most affected by police violence, we submit the following questions and demands:

Questions:

To Council: Did you at anytime seek to review the entire KeyPoint report?

To Council: Apart from who should be disciplined, what role do you believe you play in these events?

To Chief: Explain in writing step by step how you came to refute the Johnson investigative report/why you disagree with his assessment and how you came to rely on the findings of the report that you fired one of its authors over?

To Manager/Chief: The Cronig-produced questions in the KeyPoint report—have they been asked of all the officers yet?

To Manager: Who actually performed the redactions (both the Oct. and Nov., 2009 versions) on the KeyPoint report? (Actual names)

To DA: Do you not consider the Johnson report “new evidence” enough to open the investigation?

To All City Leaders: Regarding the body laying there for nearly 6 hours (increasing the conflict)…what has been changed via policy to address this NEVER happens again?

To All City Leaders: How do we rebuild trust?

Note: On questions to the Manager, Mayor, Council & Chief we expect answers back by Wednesday, May 26, 5:00 p.m. The question to the DA, we want our City Manager to ask it of her, alongside our posing it directly. We would like a response back via the Manager on this also by May 26th.

Demands:

First and foremost, we demand that the City issue a public, formal apology to the Sanders and Smith families and secondly, that they issue a public, formal apology to the entire City for this betrayal of confidence. We want this apology to address the unfair treatment provided to the individuals that were shot, and the communities they are a part of, by city officials, including misleading the media, such that it was constantly suggested or asserted that they were deserving of death or serious wounding.

We demand the hiring of an outside attorney to review the legal ascertains made by David Smith on the shooting and subsequent events. This hiring process must quantifiably include community input. This process should include an overall legal departmental audit.

We demand the City officially request that the Dept. of Justice include in it’s current review this case in light of the Johnson and KeyPoint reports, as well as the surrounding maneuvers and lack of action by City leaders.

As soon as the document is prepared that responds to Mayor Leffingwell’s call for an accounting of Smith’s activities and other questions surrounding who knew what & when, we demand the City release it - in full - to the public.

We demand a moratorium on negotiations of pension or severance benefits to David Smith until investigation is complete.

We demand the City adopt new use of force policy as recommended by a host of community and neighborhood groups that includes the “Preservation of Life” standard.

We demand a new grand jury, the one that was promised by Rosemary Lindbergh if new evidence were to come to light. We assert that the findings of the Keypoint and Johnson reports constitute new evidence, as they were not used in the grand jury’s original case. We’d also add to this if new evidence is found through the civil suit trial, that would constitute a call for a new grand jury process.

We demand the replacement of Chief Acevedo. We see the chief as directly responsible for the chain of negligence, in claiming he was “confident in the legality” (5:15 min. in) of the initial shots fired on the day it occurred, before the investigation even began, which was shortened to half the time normally taken (and was conducted by new internal affairs investigators who had no specific IA training; Dunn was even fired for his ineptness). He is also responsible for his officers, a task that he has failed to accommodate to a level of public trust. While Chief Acevedo brought the much-needed disciplinary matrix to APD and had been seemingly consistent in its use outside of the Sanders matter, several issues within this matter have turned all his good words and deeds on its head.

We are concerned specifically about the firing of only one investigator for a “biased report” (if the other authors were just as culpable in that biasness), and also why he was fired for an email but Quintana not fired for what we believe is excessive force. We see the Chief as not consistent in his overall departmental application of discipline when compared to his firing of Michael Olsen for the shooting of Kevin Brown, when, in fact, he stated both it was the poor tactics leading up to the shooting and the shooting itself that was the cause for termination. We seriously question the Chief’s not firing Quintana considering: the former head of Internal Affairs submitted a report that agreed point by point with the KeyPoint charges –with only the conclusions different– which is in line with what the public has viewed from the lone videotape in the matter, along with the Citizen’s Review Panel recommending of a much harsher penalty, which would also indicate at least partial agreement with Johnson and KeyPoint reports. We also question why the other two officers at the scene did not receive any discipline on the tactical mistakes, other than the 3-day suspension to Officer Siddiqui for his failure to activate his videocamera.

In all of this, we believe the chief has also shown poor judgment and disrespect for the communities affected.

We further demand that the new City Conduct Accountability Council and other community leaders be given a quantifiable role in the new chief’s selection.

We demand all police officers be drug tested regularly, with special attention to steroid usage (if we’re doing this to our firefighters, who have not been disciplined for substance abuse issues, we certainly should do this with our police who have been disciplined for such). In addition, we demand all police cars be fitted with breathalyzers.

We demand that all city and county personnel that were involved in the negligent exposure of Sanders’ body on the morning of the shooting be reprimanded. An apology on this matter is not enough.

Note: We expect almost all of these to be acted upon immediately, and public discussion to start immediately on those items not merely an administrative fix or a public statement to be issued.

Proposals:

We offer this as informational to the City; no action on the City’s part is required.

In light of the lack of trust for the City, we will form our own “City Accountability Council,” which will look into matters of overall City accountability, APD accountability & training. Community members will meet 5/26/10 to further develop this Council. Two tracks we have discussed pursuing at this juncture are: 1. create a task force to bring to the table a true citizens’ oversight process – and discuss whether this will become a proposed amendment to the meet and confer contract or if it will be one solely conducted outside of the formal City processes, such that it cannot be corrupted by the factors that led to where we are now, and 2. create a task force in which concerned citizens will formalize our own investigative survey of the Sanders shooting and the City’s handling thereof.