The Republican National Convention continues this week in Milwaukee, where former President Donald Trump accepted his party’s nomination and made his first public appearance since an attempt on his life on Saturday.
Even before Trump’s assassination attempt, the Department of Homeland Security designated the RNC as a SEAR 1 event, indicating that it was of worldwide importance and required considerable security support.
Governor Greg Abbott sent more than 100 cops from Texas communities to help secure the RNC, including 27 from Austin.
“If anyone’s going to an event like this, Austin is not only the best equipped but also has the greatest benefit of learning from these types of events,” said Michael Bullock, President of the Austin Police Association.
Wisconsin officials, according to Abbott’s office, will pay the cost of transporting these police officers across the nation to assist with security details.
Bullock stated that this has been in the works for several months. “There’s a lot of coordination that goes into it, and a lot of times the hosting agency is responsible for trying to go out and get additional assistance.”
However, this happens when APD already has limited resources.
“We just don’t have the number of officers that we need in order to serve our community,” Interim Chief Robin Henderson told CBS Austin last month.
APD continues to have an alarming number of vacancies in its department.
Governor Abbott also sent police from Dallas, Fort Worth, and McAllen to the RNC; Austin stands out as the department with the greatest vacancy rate.
Austin, PD, is 28% empty.
Dallas PD: 6% empty.
Fort Worth, PD, is 11% empty.
McAllen Police Department: N/A.
“You’re on record for saying that at some points this year in East Austin, there weren’t enough patrol units to be around the area for hours on end; that’s how severe the staffing crisis is,” CBS Austin reporter Abigail Velez told Bullock.
Velez continues with a question: “So how is it that we were able to afford for officers to go to Milwaukee for the RNC, when we’re struggling to have officers serve our own city right now?”
Bullock responded: “It is a risk versus reward type; if we were at appropriate staffing levels, it would be less of a challenge.”
Bullock claims that APD only deploys in this manner once or twice a year, and he also thinks it’s a great chance to prepare for large-scale event coverage, something Austin is accustomed to.
Bullock asserted, “I believe that officers attending such an event is a necessity.”
He continued, “If we don’t learn from others, we’ll lag behind. And these large-scale events are significant economic drivers in our community.”
“But do you think that this puts the city in a vulnerable position, not having these extra officers on hand to serve Austin?” said Abigail with concern.
“I’m not going to deny that it’s still stretching us, then trying to meet all the goals that we have,” asked Bullock.
But receiving an invitation to these events is a sign of the service we offer, and if you don’t attend, you’ll start to lag behind, he says.
According to the Governor’s Office, if the Democratic National Convention seeks security details from the APD or other local agencies, they will comply.
