Austin panel hears external review of APD use-of-force reporting; task force to overhaul data, policy and training

The Austin Public Safety Committee on May 19 took up a briefing on a review of how the Austin Police Department counts and reports use-of-force incidents, hearing that inconsistent definitions and data practices have inflated public counts and complicated oversight.

Dr. Robin Engel, a senior research scientist at The Ohio State University, told the committee that her review found multiple inconsistencies in APD reporting, statistical analysis and the oversight processes that together make it hard to produce reliable public use-of-force statistics. “One of the highest risks is use of force, and that risk is for officers as well as the public,” Engel said.

Engel summarized her work for the committee: interviews with APD command staff and units (including the Force Review Unit and Special Investigations Unit), ride-alongs in the Sixth Street/George sector, review of prior reports (including the CORL and Kroll-related materials), selective body-worn camera footage, and a large data review with APD analysts. She said the department’s public numbers can double depending on the unit of analysis used for counting and that the issue is large enough to warrant pausing public reporting until the problems are fixed.

The review found that in 2024, APD recorded 2,919 individual subjects who had force used against them but published counts at the report level that totaled 6,301 — a difference Engel attributed to…