The podcast comes in the wake of the city’s suspension of its partnership with the Texas Department of Public Safety
The Austin Police Association has launched a podcast chronicling the impact of the push to defund the department.
The series, "Defunded," will feature interviews with officers and detectives from units that have had their funding slashed or were disbanded altogether.
A member of the Austin, Texas police department stands watch during the Gold Cup semifinal match between the United States and Qatar on Thursday July 29th, 2021 at Q2 stadium in Austin,TX. ((Photo by Nick Tre. Smith/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images))
"I just wanted to sit down and talk about the history of the last six years, and how we got to the situation where we as an agency defunded and disbanded several units," says APA President Thomas Villareal in the debut episode.
Villareal traces the rise of the "defund" movement to late 2017, early 2018 when discussions of "reimagining" the police began to emerge. The city council eventually voted unanimously to gut APD's budget by about one-third, or $150 million, during the 2020 riots. The state legislature passed a law the following year forcing Austin to restore the funding it had cut, but by then police officers had retired or chosen to depart in huge numbers – and the cancelation of police academy classes left the department unable to replace them.
"There was a deep dive into ‘what is police oversight?’" Villareal says. "What should that look like? What’s that going to look like?"
The podcast comes in the wake of the city’s suspension of its partnership with the Texas Department of Public Safety. The partnership began in March after an increase in crime following the city council’s unanimous decision in August 2020 to slash the police department’s budget by about one-third. As of July 2023, the department is down by an estimated 500 officers.
FILE: Texas DPS trooper exiting vehicle. (Texas DPS)
Podcast co-host Cpl. and APA chair Christopher Irwin challenged the notion that the department "got all this money back." He noted that officers and staff "leave in droves" every time the department is turned on its head.
"People who are eligible or retire, people who are just fed up with activists controlling city council … rather than lose out on a large sum of money that they in their minds may never get back because they went without a contract, they decided to leave," Irwin says. "That happens time and time again, every time we go without a contract or every time this defunding happens or these units are eliminated."
Austin Mayor Kirk Watson suspended the APD-DPS partnership in response to reports of a traffic stop carried out by Texas state troopers. Initial reports said troopers had pointed a gun at a 10-year-old boy. Texas DPS later released body cam footage showing that the trooper had his gun pointed down and had defused the situation with the driver, who did not have a proper license plate, insurance, registration, or a license.
Bradford Betz is a Fox News Digital breaking reporter covering crime, political issues, and much more.
