In late October, Assistant Chief Justin Newsom abruptly resigned from the Austin Police Department after 23 years on the force. Newsom, who oversaw the department’s downtown operations, quit the same day someone filed an anonymous complaint accusing him of using racial slurs: to refer to black officers, a fellow assistant chief who was black, a black city council member, and even Barack Obama when the president landed in Austin. According to the complaint—filed with the city’s Office of Police Monitor—the department’s leaders, including Police Chief Brian Manley, “were made aware of AC Newsom using the extremely derogatory term ‘nigger’ and failed to report it for investigation or review.”
The notion that an openly racist cop could rise to the top of the department has led to soul searching in Austin, a city with outwardly progressive politics but a history of racist policing. After Newsom’s departure, other complaints within the Austin Police Department started to surface. African American officers decried the lack of diversity within APD leadership; one complaint claims Manley approved of APD’s chief of staff forcing a family member into “conversion therapy” (the abusive and pseudoscientific practice of trying to change someone’s sexual orientation); another assistant chief stands accused of disparaging Latinx officers.
At a meeting Thursday night, Austin city council members said the fallout from Newsom’s resignation had shaken their faith in the department. With a unanimous vote, they ordered an audit of the department’s cadet training materials and an outside investigation to root out “racism and other discriminatory attitudes, training, protocols, or procedures” at APD.
