Austin’s civilian police watchdog has dropped its 2024 annual report, and it reads like a yearlong performance review that got a lot more serious. The Office of Police Oversight says 125 Austin Police Department officers were disciplined in 2024, and sustained complaints jumped to nearly four times the previous year. The report pairs those numbers with a slate of policy fixes, from body camera rules to off-duty conduct, and city leaders used a recent City Council work session to reopen long-running debates about transparency and union bargaining limits.
According to the City of Austin, the office logged 1,052 community contacts in 2024. That included 841 external complaints and 211 compliments, and staff forwarded 159 recommended cases to APD for investigation. Of the complaints that moved forward, 69 external and 107 internal complaints were sustained, for a total of 176 sustained findings. Across those cases, 125 officers received some form of discipline. The oversight office also recorded 26 policy recommendations and issued 21 disciplinary objections or recommendations over the course of the year.
Local reporting and data analysis show that sustained complaints rose nearly fourfold from 2023, a jump OPO attributes to both higher complaint volume and what it calls “more assertive oversight,” as summarized by the Austin American-Statesman. The most common policy violations behind discipline involved misuse of department vehicles, general conduct issues, and vehicle pursuits. The office also reestablished the Community Police Review Commission and uploaded dozens of critical incident videos and transparency documents to its online portal, making more materials publicly accessible than in past years…