‘God help us all’: Police union chief says Austin on ‘brink of disaster’ due to ‘free-fall

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According to Austin Police Association President Michael Bullock, The City of Legends is on the “brink of disaster” thanks to a 2020 decision to defund the police department.

“Previous councils and leadership have actively worked against our officers and department, which has now put us in a free-falling staffing crisis,” Bullock told Fox News Digital. “Twice now we’ve had our contract voted down or it has been allowed to expire.”

“Each year since 2017, we’ve lost more officers than we’ve hired,” he stated. “We had to gut our specialized units and force detectives to work backfill on patrol just to try and respond to 911 calls.”

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In February, Bullock took to X and revealed that, for two hours, there wasn’t a single police officer available to patrol an entire section of Austin.

“Staffing woes continue,” he wrote. “Due to our staffing being at 2006 levels, an entire sector in East Austin went two hours without a patrol officer assigned to the sector today. Our backfill shift made up of detectives and specialized units pulling double duty had to provide coverage.”

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“Last year, the department was on the verge of a staffing collapse after 40 officers filed retirement papers following a 9-2 city council vote to scrap a four-year contract that the city had previously agreed to in principle and instead pursue a one-year contract that the police union’s board had rejected,” Fox Digital reports.

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“As a result,” Bullock said, “our staffing has been set back at least 15 years and at the same time we’ve dealt with a population growth of over 250,000 new residents.”

“Combine that,” he added, “with a district attorney who has made it very clear that targeting officers and releasing criminals is his priority – not public safety.”

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