How thoughtful of Art Acevedo. He didn’t want to be a distraction.
The backlash barely lasted for a news cycle before Austin’s former police chief walked away from the $271,000 assistant city manager job that thrust him back into the spotlight.
“While I continue to admire and support these leaders of the Austin community, it is clear that this newly created position has become a distraction from the critical work ahead for our city, the Austin Police Department, and the Austin Police Association,” Acevedo wrote Tuesday on social media.
And yes, it was wise for Acevedo to move on, considering the news of his return clearly irked half of the City Council, stunned the sexual assault survivors failed by his old police crime lab, riled the criminal justice reform advocates and plainly underwhelmed the Austin police officers’ union (“There is no doubt that Art Acevedo has a checkered past,” Austin Police Association Michael Bullock told my American-Statesman colleagues).
That said: Acevedo’s new job wasn’t a mere distraction.