Chief Chacon's Written Reprimand

           There’s one question that can be used to narrow down the pool of candidates for our new police chief. Imagine a scene, like at a Congressional hearing in years past, a witness is being asked about his association with the Communist Party or the Mafia or even the Ku Klux Klan. If it helps, imagine the witness wearing a mask or hood to disguise his identity. The first and most important question to ask him or her—the only question to ask, some might argue—in order to shorten the police chief candidate list, would be similar to asking about KKK or fellow-traveler connections, “Are you now—or have you ever been—a member of the Austin Police Association?” If the answer is yes, strike that name from the list. Of course that would not work in present circumstances, in the case of Acting Chief Joseph Chacon who is getting a tryout in the top job and deservedly so. Chief Chacon has almost certainly been a member of the Police Association at some time or another but declines to say when or if he resigned. Be that as it may. Chacon’s appointment to the permanent job still presents a troubling dynamic for the people of the Live Music Capital of the World. The Acting Chief rose to power in an organization that has a violent and racist and/or misogynistic present and past, yet he himself is a member of a minority group and may not have spoken out. Or did not speak much. Because he wouldn’t have lasted, frankly, or prospered in this organization, as he has. 

             Unless his is one of those redacted names of assistant chiefs—in last year’s investigatory bomb about racism on the force, authored by former San Antonio prosecutor Lisa Tatum, who is a sister, btw, and who went through the Austin Police Department like shit through the proverbial goose. The Tatum report found that p.d. leadership—including the infamous fifth floor of the pig pen—the offices of the assistant chiefs, a group that for the last six years has included Joseph Chacon—was aware of bad behavior but took a long, long time for anyone to speak up. In fact, much of the bad behavior was on the fifth floor, not to be judgmental. Before moving to condemn these high-ranking police officers, it’s best to give the Acting Chief his chance at the microphone—and that was actually just done, on KVUE, in a very savvy interview by morning anchor Yvonne Nava, who is hot and smart in equal measure.

Ms. Nava shares her interviewee’s ethnicity and she threw Chief Chacon some softballs, sure, but in a long interview—this was half an hour—apparently that was exactly the correct approach. The chief began to relax and talk about himself. Unlike interviewing former Chief Art Acevedo—whose mere presence fills a room and who is believed to have political ambitions, and who has just become Police Chief of Miami after a rocky few years in Houston and a decade here in River City before that—Acting Chief Chacon seemed more professorial. Even meek. A former high-ranking local officer, who is minority but not Latino, said that Chacon, whom he met years ago, made no particular impression on him—and that regardless of Chief Chacon’s management chops, which are considerable, and his knowledge of facts on the ground, which may be unmatched, City Hall needs to hire an outsider to lead this Police Department. That is how my guy couched the choice, not choosing between Joseph Chacon and someone else, but picking an insider or an outsider. City Hall could certainly do a lot worse in a Chief of Police and already has, on a number of occasions. The question is do you really want to hire a guy or girl to reform a system that he or she is a product of?

There is a reason for diversity, in journalism as in policework, and Ms. Nava, who is from Laredo, already knew something about her subject before she sat down to talk to him. The upshot of the interview was that Joseph Chacon is a good guy, he may not be chief material—we’ll have to wait and see, just like with anyone else—but if he were white he would probably already have the position. And that’s the test, isn’t it? Isn’t that the new standard in public affairs—no more white privilege, everybody gets treated the same? Minorities don’t have to walk on water in order to get the same job that a more flawed white guy or white girl? Not to be judgmental, again. So, like, to cut to the chase Chief Chacon seems actually to merit the position. He’s very smart—not just in the sense that former Chief Acevedo is smart—it was Acevedo, btw, who elevated Chacon to the fifth floor where the assistant chiefs have their lair. But well-educated too. What Acevedo seemed to know instinctively, Chacon has learned in a classroom, in a trajectory from El Paso P.D. to Austin P.D. His training transcript, on file with the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement, reads like War and Peace and is almost as long. His story overall—as it is currently being pushed at City Hall and as was revealed in Ms. Nava’s excellent interview—is a little too good to be true but not a deal-breaker by any means. This is a guy who was Austin P.D.’s intelligence chief, responsible for liaison with the FBI, and also a supervisor on the Homicide Detail, so the idea that Chief Chacon has spent his career helping little old ladies to cross Congress Avenue may not be an accurate description of his history with the department. He told Ms. Nava that his most fulfilling time was as a detective. That may turn out to be a liability.

He was, again btw, on the Homicide Detail when Areli Escobar was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. There’s a commendation for then-Lieutenant Chacon’s handling of the case, in his record released by City Hall. Areli Escobar—who is on Death Row—has just been recommended for retrial, after issues of misconduct. That may present problems down the road for the Acting Chief but the misconduct was apparently lab-related and prosecutorial, in the office of hapless then-D.A. Rosemary Lehmberg. History can come back to bite you, as Chief Chacon may discover, but he’s not alone. Both our city manager and deputy manager, who will choose the next chief of the Austin Police Department, btw, served in similar positions in Minneapolis, the Bad Policing Capital of the World. The new U.S. Attorney General has ordered review of the Minneapolis force whose practices the present Austin city manager and deputy manager were almost certainly aware of, or should have been aware, whether they directly supervised the department or not in Minneapolis, as they do here in Texas. Which means a probable visit from a Special Agent, or two, if just for a chat—what didn’t you know in the Twin Cities, for example, and when didn’t you know it? In the case of Austin’s skeletons, all those people killed in recent years by APD, circumstances may actually work in Chief Chacon’s favor. There is the very real possibility that APD officers have committed murder on the job, not just those recently charged by the new D.A. An outsider might stumble upon something, while an insider would know where not to look.

That’s why it's a little worrisome, Chief Chacon’s role as a minority in a racist environment. Did he shuck and jive his way through the ranks like some of the high-ranking black officers or did he speak up? Probably both. It’s a question of degree for a minority officer in heavily white-led and white-populated police departments, like our own, said my guy above. My guy also did the job as a high-ranking law enforcement official who is not white. Getting there is harder for blacks and Asians but Latinos and Latinas also face a lot of soul-searching about how much crap to take from white people, especially supervisors, in order to advance their careers. There’s no particular evidence in Chief Chacon’s record that he spoke up—because the file that was released about him, by Human Resources, had obviously been sanitized with bleach. In other words—selling out la raza, or whatever one might wish to call it—the chances that he is a mole for the Police Association do not seem high.

In his personnel file he is described while still a patrolman as a “hot dog,” literally, which is not particularly encouraging, and later working as a detective as being energetic, whatever that meant. He was a civil service advancement up to the rank of commander when Chief Acevedo elevated him to assistant chief. And something changed, frankly, around that time in the Austin Police Department. Art Acevedo arrived from Cali, he had made his bones in the Highway Patrol, at one point as a headhunter, and was kind of macho, yeah, but in a good way, and he was unwilling to get down on all fours for the Police Association, as was the local custom at the time. Because up until that time the Chief had mostly been APA’s bitch. Choosing the new chief will also be a major political decision at City Hall. Latinos say it’s their turn, Chief Acevedo didn’t count, he was Cuban not Tejano. And blacks have written ourselves out of contention, in this horse race, by selling out in the past. The city manager showed surprisingly bad judgment, just recently, in that regard. For the committee responsible for “re-imagining” the Austin police force, the manager picked a black former assistant chief named Michael McDonald who has been the police department’s official Uncle Tom since, oh, the turn of the century. McDonald who also served as deputy city manager, was the guy you would see standing behind former Mayor Leffingwell at a press conference, after a bad police shooting, to make it seem that blacks were on board with the department’s version of the facts. It's said that even as deputy city manager he liked to be called "Chief." Shit. He'll have to be really good at re-imagining, since Chief McDonald helped to imagine what we have now. McDonald is the mole for APA, if anyone is, on the Re-Imagination Committee. If there were a Nuremberg trial for APD, instead of re-imagination, Chief McDonald would be locked up, but he is said to be liked by incumbent Mayor Steve Adler, who is a ho too.

With this background in mind, in order to see where Joseph Chacon is coming from, look at two other former APD higher-ups, both members of minority groups. In the Tatum report, there’s a reference to an unnamed black assistant chief being described derisively by a white colleague, “He may be a nigger, but he’s our nigger.” Words to that effect. That’s a reference to Frank Dixon who left Austin p.d. almost three years ago to become chief in Denton, outside Dallas. In an email exchange last year, after Ms. Tatum released her report, Chief Dixon acknowledged that the reference was to him, but denied that he sold out his peeps for the braid on his cap, or that he ignored racism and intolerance in order to advance his own career. “That’s ridiculous,” he wrote. “There is no way I would or have stood by and watched anything of the sort. I have always done the right thing, and my career has not been the driving force behind any decisions I’ve made.” Which sounds completely insincere, actually, for a couple of reasons. First there’s the Stalinist argument—you know, the mere suspicion that could still get you a bullet from a revolutionary tribunal? Just the fact that anyone would say that about you, that Frank Dixon is “our nigger,” not a good sign. There’s more. A different former high-ranking law enforcement official, not my guy mentioned above, but another outstanding officer, who knew Assistant Chief Dixon, and who is white, said that was exactly what Dixon did do, play the role of House Negro at APD headquarters. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. There’s more. This is, like, the bomb. Literally the only proof you need to vote thumbs down on Chief Dixon as a candidate to lead our department. After Dixon left for Denton, and as Acevedo was leaving for Houston, and the Police Association was pushing for the appointment of Acevedo’s number two guy, Brian Manley, the white guy who was chief of staff, to get the top job, which he did, and just retired from, after a little push by City Council—Police Association President Ken Casaday said that if it weren’t for Manley, who APA was supporting, the Association would have backed Frank Dixon for the top job. Which is, like, all you need to know about Chief Dixon’s suitability for office. Without even asking are you now or have you ever been, you feel me?

A second former APD assistant chief, Jessica Robledo, who is a gay Latina, was described by my #2 guy above in the same breath with Frank Dixon, as someone who used her identity as a way up the chain of command. Without much concern for what was going on around her. (Chief Robledo, who was just fired in a suburban Austin community for supposedly creating a “toxic” atmosphere in her department, could not be reached to ask if she sold out.) And this is, again, in the Stalinist model—which may not seem fair but does have a certain logic—because of one fundamental question. How can you rise as a minority officer in a racist and sexist organization like the Austin Police Department (which has been responsible for dozens of killings of minorities through the years, mostly black men but Latinos as well) unless you’re turning a blind eye? Lucky for us here in the Live Music Capital of the World, there’s a good chance that Chief Chacon is made of different stuff. And that times have changed, especially since his appointment as assistant chief, when he first got that office on the fifth floor.

The same high-level former officer first mentioned above, My Guy #1 we can call him, even though he is not a supporter of Acting Chief Chacon—and believes Joseph Chacon should not get the job permanently, because there needs to be an outsider to come in and clean out the stables. My GUY #2 still urged caution in believing any last-minute bombshells about the Acting Chief. “Because once you get to that level, [people] are looking for shit to throw at you, to see what sticks.” Don’t you love this town? Also, he said, after a quarter century at the pig pen, no matter how studious his manner Chief Chacon has pissed off a lot of people who might like nothing better than to torpedo his career. And there’s just the ordinary random chance that he has stepped in shit, doing his job, in Homicide or in Intelligence, maybe out on date night with the FBI, who aren’t helping your grandmother to cross the street either. Or there’s something he saw or heard on the fifth floor. Chief Acevedo once said in an interview on the eighth floor, btw, because that’s where the big guy or big girl has his or her office, that it was his job to know the city’s secrets. Acting Chief Chacon already knows whatever it is that City Hall hides from the public, security measures, wrongdoing by the silicon elites, or by the cops themselves. Chief Chacon knows all that already, whether he gets the permanent title or not. And as a way to smear him, someone might point at the white officer who supervised Joseph Chacon on the Homicide Detail, a guy named Spangler, who was later in charge of training at the police academy where a lot of the racism in the department has apparently originated. Can you hold that against Acting Chief Chacon? No. That would be guilt by association, which is where the Stalinist model breaks down. Unless it's the Police Association, that would be one association you can condemn. With a cop, you mostly want to look at his or her record. The Acting Chief’s is impressive enough.

There is actually proof that Joseph Chacon has gotten in trouble before, as a young officer, btw, which makes him human and is somehow reassuring. The incident comes from a time before he arrived in Austin, when he was a patrolman in his hometown of El Paso, back, back in the day. We’re talking 1995, a quarter-century ago, more. So, like, he has a letter of written reprimand in his file at El Paso P.D. How cool is that? And it’s a beautiful thing, not to get all sentimental or anything. The Chief of Police who actually wrote the letter to young Patrolman Chacon was muy pissed off, you might say.

This was not one paragraph, don’t do it again. It was half a page, you fucked up big time. So, like, the circumstances were that Officer Chacon had restrained a prisoner in a patrol car but not tightly enough to stop the guy from kicking out a window, breaking glass that cut Chacon’s partner. Imagine how different that scenario would be in Austin. The complaint would be that the officer kicked the shit out of the prisoner, or slammed his head into the hood of the patrol car. Or shot an unarmed suspect running away. Or shot an unarmed suspect standing still. Officer Chacon’s error was not using enough force instead of too much. That could mean difficult days ahead on the fifth floor.