The director of the Texas Civil Rights Project alleges that the Austin police chief violated civil service laws when he sent a copy of the controversial KeyPoint report to a former colleague.

The independent report came as a response to East Austin community outrage over the shooting death of Nathaniel Sanders in May 2009 by former Austin police officer Leonardo Quintana. The report was originally released in Oct. 2009, however the Austin Police Department and the City of Austin only released a heavily-redacted version of the report.

Soon after, APD Chief Art Acevedo he sent a full, unredacted copy of the report to a former colleague, California Highway Patrol Lt. Paul Golonski, for feedback.

Assistant City Manager Michael McDonald said earlier this week it is common practice for police chiefs to ask for opinions from others in the field, but nonetheless the tone of the feedback has led to concerns over bias.

Golonski's handwritten notes praise Quintana, calling him a "good" and "thoughtful" officer and saying he did his job. Meanwhile, calls the KeyPoint review "crazy" and "stupid," questions the reasoning and suggests the officers involved stopped a "robbery crew."

Texas Civil Rights Project Director Jim Harrington said in a statement that Acevedo committed a "misdemeanor when he sent the KeyPoint report on Nathaniel Sanders' shooting to a friend of his."

The statement sites Texas Local Government Code 143.016, which is designed to create secure and efficient local police and fire departments free of political influences. It states "An offense under this section or Section 143.009 is a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of not less than $10 or more than $100, confinement in the county jail for not more than 30 days, or both fine and confinement."

Harrington argues that because the report, as APD and the City of Austin previously alleged, was placed in Quintana's civil service file, Acevedo was prohibited from releasing the information.

"They can't have it both ways -- say on one hand that the report is confidential by law, but then break the law and release it to select people," according to a statement by the Texas Civil Rights Project.

At the City of Austin council meeting Thursday, council members questioned the city legal department on the process.

The law department said both the city manager's office and Chief Acevedo gave direction to release as much of the report as it legally could.

Department members reemphasized that the redactions resulted from how the city interpreted its "meet and confer" contract with the Austin Police Association. The department had argued that the report contains allegations against a police officer that must remain confidential, due to a former contract stipulation, since they did not result in discipline lasting more than one day.

"It seems to me that a lot of the things which you did redact were not evidentiary facts or substantive investigative information, and that the reason that you redacted them could not have been these limited grounds," Council member Bill Spelman said. "It must have been something else.''

Lee Crawford, with the city's legal department, said it was a simple matter of interpretation.

''I think the way we looked at that was anything in the report that referred to those unsustained allegations would be included within the scope of what would be redacted, again kind of relying on the general confidentiality backdrop of the civil service laws,'' Crawford said.

They said nobody, including the APA, suggested a different understanding of that contract until this month.