Resign Manley!

As community cries reached a fever pitch for our police chief, Brian Manley, to be fired, we learned today our City Manager, Spencer Cronk, can't do that. Because TEXAS.

Fine--then let's use "resign" as a transitive verb to mean: make him resign. Because that's what he'll obviously do if given the choice between that and demotion from the top cop job (although I do relish Grit's imaginary titles for him). 

Photo by Jana Birchum, AChron

The fact that he's saying there were no policy violations that he knows of, that it all fell within policy guidelines, tells us where the "investigations" are going to end up. 

Question is: is Cronk ready to accept his share of the blame in ALL that is wrong with our police force under Manley, and accept that ONLY a change in leadership can trigger the change we need in Austin?

THIS is "by the book"?

There were PLENTY of reasons to resign him well before the atrocities of this past weekend (do watch this short video summary), not the least of which is his failure to fire Christopher Taylor who not only shouldn't have killed Michael Ramos, but 9 months earlier, had no business shooting/killing Dr. Mauris DeSilva, "holding" a knife while having a mental health episode - since his two partners chose to Taser him. The fact that he has now LIED in order to protect his killer officer is another reason to fire him.

But do please take the time to read all the other reasons, including the deaths on his head, and the lies/manipulation to avoid responsibility for them. 

We also can't forget Manley was Chief Acevedo's right jackboot after David Carter took the top cop job at UT-Austin, so he had a direct role in much of the militarization of APD; from securing grant after grant for the equipment to the training tactics for "riot control," and amping up the slow boil behind the blue shield that cooks up the notion all protests are riots. Or all protests against the police anyway. Because OF COURSE it makes sense to respond to people protesting police violence with police violence!

So, this past weekend falls, in part, on Acevedo & former city manager Marc Ott - but while Acevedo used provocateurs and riot cops, there was very little "non-lethal" force involved. THAT's on Manley & Cronk.

Firing upon medics rending aid CANNOT possibly be in accordance with any policy, much less the law.

ALL of the academic analysis out there say that these militaristic tactics only increase the conflict; as people run for their lives or try to defend themselves, cops come down harder.  

Shooting people in the back multiple times as they run for their lives is NOT POLICING. ... It's TERRORISM.

Disgusting in a different way is the about-face merely for optics sake: trying to kill us one day, then the next, passing out cookies and throwing up ASL “love” hand signs for photographers. "Now is the time to come together," Manley said. N.O.W.???????????

His tearful “apology” saying “this is not what we set out to do,” was a BLATANT LIE. It is ABSOLUTELY what they set out to do. They got all dressed up in their riot best, donned their "non-lethal" rifles, loaded their pepper spray guns, had arsenals of ammo at the ready, placed LRADs around threateningly, planned and trained; and he gave the orders, and continued to give the orders after seeing the initial results.

Let’s look at the timeline of last weekend and who ordered what and when, and who didn’t order any cessation of the atrocities committed on peaceful protestors that posed no ACTUAL physical threat to police (water bottles don’t count when you’re in full riot gear and you’ve just hosed down a crowd with pepperspray):

TIMELINE - AUTHORIZATION of USE OF FORCE 
& CRONK's RESPONSE:

• Manley authorized use of all force except live rounds on FRIDAY, or before then in preparation.

• Whether Cronk was informed, we don’t know. 

• FRIDAY: both almost certainly watched our live video of their shooting gallery from the elevated APD HQ platform/if not, they were getting reports. There were dozens of rounds fired at protestors on the other side of the street/40' away yelling, flipping them off & MAYBE 1-2 water bottles (I went down halfway through, had a beanbag round fly 6" past my face--NEVER saw anything fly from the protestor towards their direction)

• Cronk didn’t tell him to stand down, obviously

• Manley said “yes…this is what I want; so SATURDAY, give them about an hour and a half” (Saturday’s protest started at noon) “…and if they don’t obey orders to disperse – let’s shoot them from the platform, from I-35 down on them, oh, and on the east side of I-35. We cannot have them on the east side of the feeder watching what we’re doing.”

• If Cronk wasn’t informed prior, he should have asked, “Hey, boo…you gonna fuck up more people today?” And perhaps, maybe said, “yeah, don’t do that.”

• Manley saw video/pics in media/on our social media of that & by Sat. afternoon said…”Yes, let’s keep doing THAT,"  so it stretched into the wee Sunday morning hours.

• Again, nothing with the Cronk-man or any orders to stand down.

• By now, Manley and Cronk both would have been receiving information on serious injuries/EMS transfers to hospitals, INCLUDING medics shot by police while rending aide!

• SUNDAY AM: Manley saw a whole lot of video/pics from the night before and said, “yes—let’s do more of that; again, give them about an hour and a half and then go CRAZY guys!"

• Cronk at this point should have said, “not today, or I will resign you!” 

• SUNDAY afternoon: after seeing MORE video/pics…Manley’s all, ”thumbs up—keep it up!” Then he had cops use TEAR GAS on protestors, lied to the media about it, saying it was just “some kind of smoke device” THEN was told, “oops, they announced it was ‘tear gas’ from the helicopter before dropping it on them, Chief" - so he was forced to send a ‘correction’ but said it was a mixture of tear gas and smoke. As if that’s okay in a respiratory-based pandemic (and it's prohibited by the Geneva Conventions…perfectly fine, though, to use on protestors!!)

• Cronk at THIS point should have been: “MANLEY STAND THE FUCK DOWN. I’M TAKING CONTROL OF YOUR DEPT!” But since he hasn’t done ANY of these things at this point, we can only assume HE’S FINE WITH IT.

• SUNDAY night: more and more and more of the same.

• Cronk, on Monday am: it would have been his prime chance to resign Manley for not obeying orders if he HAD given those orders – or at the very least, a good moment to realize, “OH FUCK, in totality for the whole weekend, this looks REAL bad, now MY job is on the line – I better throw Manley under the bus to save it.”

Instead, Cronk orders Manley to have cops "engage" the protestors: "That ought to make up for this weekend."

We know this “ban” on non-lethals can be lifted any moment, on a whim - because nothing's changed. Still the same culture, still the same leader in charge.

Manley is old school; he’s obviously too entrenched in the militaristic culture.  He’s had plenty of time to “learn,” to change policy, to try progressive recommended approaches…instead he’s reversed progressive policy, including transparency gains made in his own reign, covered up for deadly cops and ordered excessive force on protestors over and over again throughout a long weekend, despite all the horrific optics, much less outcomes.

He has proven time and again, that he’s not willing to change, much less capable of changing. He’s lied, time and again, about being the change agent we need. Don't believe him NOW!  Allowing him to stay puts us all in jeopardy.  

If Cronk and Council don't have the will of other cities moving to #DefundThePolice - essentially restructure it completely - then they HAVE to realize that at the very least, we must get new leadership over APD. 

Cronk must accept his failures in this and resign Manley ASAP...or he's next.
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TELL CRONK TO RESIGN MANLEY & FIRE Asst. City Manager REY ARELLANO 

(over Public Safety) & FIRE APD Asst. Chief TROY GAY: 

512-974-2200  spencer.cronk@austintexas.gov

"Every time Manley talks about an officer's "Response to Resistance" in the context of the weekend events and the Mike Ramos shooting, I feel that those three little words encapsulate the vast gap between the mindset of our police leadership and the mindset of the public they are supposed to serve. Manley does not even have words to use to discuss a situation in which officers shoot someone who is NOT RESISTING. His entire mental framework assumes that his officers only use force as a response to an external offense against them or others. Mike Ramos, standing with his hands up, was NOT RESISTING." - Kathy Mitchell, veteran police accountability activist