Texas Observer: “Initial findings from a series city-commissioned reports released over the past year seem to only bolster complaints from former cadets like Spisak and spotlight the kind of violent, warrior-cop culture that pervades much of policing. One group of reports released last summer called APD’s paramilitary approach to training police antiquated, saying it reinforces an us-versus-them mentality toward the larger public. Another report on racial and other inequities in police training released just before the New Year’s holiday warned of a “culture of violence” at the academy. According to that report, “many of the academy’s trainers rely overwhelmingly on ‘violent,’ ‘brutal,’ ‘traumatizing’ practices designed to ‘manufacture soldiers’ rather than produce community-driven law enforcement professionals adept at de-escalation.”
That same report also says that APD’s training division lists only one Black employee out of 57 and that Black cadets in the academy are underrepresented when compared to the population of Austin, less likely than their peers to graduate, and more likely to be injured during APD’s training academy than any other race. Another city-commissioned report released last month found that training videos perpetuated harmful racial stereotypes; nearly half the people shown in the videos interacting with and subjected to violence by officers were Black.
Problems at Austin’s police academy are part of far more fundamental shortcomings in police training in Texas and across the country, where outdated and insufficient training standards contribute to a broken, toothless system for regulating police.”