Civil Rights and Wrongs for July 20, 2021

This Tuesday we’re splitting the show into halves.  Our first guest is Farah Muscadin, Director of the Office of Police Oversight for the City of Austin.  OPO was formally established in 2018 but just issued its first annual report, covering 2019 and 2020.  We’ll hear about the process for filing complaints (and compliments), and discuss the disposition and resolution of those by the Austin Police Department.  We’re also joined by regular guest Jim Harrington, retired founder of the Texas Civil Rights Project, who speaks from his own experience in handling lawsuits involving police wrongdoing.

For the second half of the show Austin Sanders, Staff Writer for the Austin Chronicle, reviews an article that he wrote earlier this year: “Yet Another Reason to Oppose Police Violence: It's Costing Us Millions of Dollars.”  Despite sanctions for police misconduct, which include reprimands, demotions and suspensions, civil lawsuits are not unheard of.  We’ll learn about the magnitude of the settlements, as well as potential alternatives that could be considered.