Austin Has a New Police Chief

After holding a few public forums, having Austin staffers visit the home cities of the finalists and mulling over the results, City Manager Toby Futrell has decided on our new chief of police: Art Acevedo from Los Angeles. The official announcement will be made at noon today.

We read yesterday that among the finalists for the position, Acevedo was a strong favorite (along with Richard Wiles from El Paso) of the Austinites who attended the forums. Acevedo speaks Spanish, is eager to work on police-community relations, and has experience working with a large and diverse community. During his tenure in L. A., he worked on security during anti-war protests during the Oscars in 2003, dealt with LAPD politics (he sued the LAPD for employee discrimination), and had a sexual harassment suit against him and the Highway Patrol dismissed (and settled one allegation).

Acevedo was strongly endorsed by a large amount of people he worked with in L.A., and was the pick of the NAACP, Austin Police Association, and the ACLU. As of yet, it is unknown when current acting chief Cathy Ellison (who was also a candidate for Chief) will be passing her duties on to Acevedo. Hopefully he will be able to deal well with the current problems APD is having.

[Statesman: Acevedo picked to lead police]

Photo by charliellewellin on flickr