By Kelli Smith
Staff Writer
Police Chief Eddie García is leaving Dallas to take on a public safety manager role in Austin, following the lead of former boss T.C. Broadnax despite officials’ efforts to keep him here.
García will become Austin’s top executive over public safety, a position which became open last month. The news that the chief will leave Dallas for the city of Austin’s administration — now led by former Dallas City Manager Broadnax — comes as the city and police navigate a year of change and grapple with recent crises.
The chief did not immediately provide comment when asked by The Dallas Morning News.
Dallas police have been in mourning after the Aug. 29 death of Officer Darron Burks, who was fatally shot as he sat in his squad car in southeast Oak Cliff. Two other officers were shot but survived. Dallas is contending with proposed public safety charter amendments that have been mired in controversy. Police and fire officials have also been embroiled in tense discussions with the city over how to fix a $4 billion shortfall in the Dallas Police and Fire Pension system.
Just four months ago, interim city manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert pledged García would stay in Dallas until at least mid-2027. The city committed to keeping him among the highest-paid Texas police chiefs with a $306,440.40 base salary and a $10,000 retention bonus every six months. He’ll leave without collecting any of the bonuses.
The News’ examination of the addendum to the chief’s offer letter showed there was nothing showing García agreed to stay until May 2027. The only mention of May 2027 is in a section that says García would get severance pay if he is fired without cause or ordered by the city manager to resign before then.
Even though the agreement does not explicitly say García commits to staying here, he said in June “that is the intent.”
“To live and work in Dallas is to love Dallas,” he said after the agreement was announced. “This is the right place to complete my service.”
The chief and Tolbert did not immediately clarify what occurred to spur his departure.
It’s unclear what Austin offered to García, who has previously emphasized his loyalty to Broadnax. After Broadnax announced his resignation as Dallas’ city manager in February, the chief said he’d “go through a wall for that man” and likened his feelings to football, saying he felt as if the coach he’d liked playing for left at the start of his senior year.
Broadnax announced his hiring of García as Dallas’ police chief in December 2020. The chief succeeded former Chief U. Reneé Hall, whose tenure was rocked by a rise in crime and contention with city officials and some police associations.
In his 3.5 years in Dallas, García built a national reputation for overseeing steady drops in violent crime. A lifelong Dallas Cowboys fan who calls himself a “blue-collar chief,” he started in Dallas on Feb. 3, 2021, as the first Hispanic person to lead the nation’s 9th-largest police force.
Born in Puerto Rico and fluent in Spanish, he came with more than 30 years of experience as a cop in San Jose, Calif., where he climbed the ranks to chief before he traveled to North Texas.
García’s selection as an outsider from California initially stirred skepticism, but he quickly earned favor with officers and City Council members, according to city and police leaders. In his first days as Dallas’ chief, he answered calls with patrol, SWAT, the gang unit and others, which impressed the rank-and-file, police association leaders have said.
García has previously stated his goal was to stay in Dallas for five years and to ensure his successor came from within the department, adding that choosing an outsider is a sign the department needs major change. He has also said his main goals included reducing violent crime, improving department morale and increasing community trust.
His violence reduction plan unveiled in May 2021 was his primary directive, and he received widespread acclaim as DPD began to report regular drops in violent crime. Despite a troubling rise in murders last year, he and city officials maintained confidence in the plan, which was created with two University of Texas at San Antonio criminologists and is based on the belief that small pockets of the city account for a disproportionate amount of its violence.
So far in 2024, violent crime has continued to fall in Dallas.
García’s reputation
García did not shy from the spotlight, often appearing on television, podcasts and at times national news to discuss his violent crime plan. In 2022, he was elected president of the Major Cities Chiefs Association, an organization of police executives from the U.S. and Canada.
As his reputation grew, he traveled often to cities like Washington, D.C., or Austin to testify about policing or criminal justice topics. His influence locally remained strong.
He has successfully advocated for more money in the police budget, and City Council members have green-lit many of his requests. The council unanimously approved the department’s proposal to make strip clubs and other sexually oriented businesses close between 2 and 6 a.m., prompting an outcry from some community members, workers and businesses.
Historically, chiefs who have overseen DPD have faced opposition from the powerful police associations and city officials — which were tempered during García’s time as chief. Police associations held a monthly meeting with García to discuss issues, and after his first year, presidents from each group said they felt the chief listened to them and was fair.
After news circulated that García was being courted by the cities of Houston and Austin earlier this year, police association leaders stood together at a news conference to advocate for retaining García — a moment they called “unprecedented.”
Although García’s time as chief was marked by frequent praise from city and state leadership, he also faced challenges that tested his leadership and commitment to transparency.
An officer was killed in a crash 10 days into García’s tenure. In his second month as chief, he fired an officer accused of ordering the slayings of two people, but a judge later ruled there wasn’t enough evidence to keep Bryan Riser jailed. Riser recently settled with the city.
A city employee also deleted more than 8 million files of police data, and when the loss became public, García and city staff said they didn’t realize the extent of the problem.
At the City Council’s monthly public safety meetings, his department was peppered with questions about officer staffing numbers. Despite a slew of new initiatives to retain and recruit officers, the department currently has around 3,100 officers — about 400 fewer than it had around 2014-15. Police response times began to climb, and the department turned to mandating online reports for some lower-level crimes.
Relationship with other departments
With police oversight members, officials at times confronted strife.
The former police oversight director, Tonya McClary, said she was left out of major investigations, including the department’s review of Sgt. Roger Rudloff, who shot a protester in 2020 at close range with pepper balls. Rudloff was cleared by a grand jury and has retired.
When body-camera footage went viral last year showing four officers laughing about a disabled veteran who had been denied the restroom, the department didn’t complete a probe into the man’s complaint until nine months later. The officers were disciplined with written reprimands after The News published a story about the delays.
“We were wrong,” the chief told oversight in April about how the case was first handled. “There’s no question we were wrong.”
The chief held news conferences after officer shootings to address questions and has said the department audits itself to find its own issues. In 2023, he implemented a constitutional policing unit and unveiled a dashboard and report analyzing officers’ use of force.
García was at times blunt about ways in which the criminal justice system failed, calling for more accountability about decisions made by judges and decrying the use of ankle monitors.
In a test of the department’s relationship with Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot’s office, in early 2023, The News uncovered that 52,000 police files had been improperly stored in the department’s evidence storage platform. The department began to audit more than 100 murder cases to look for deleted evidence, throwing some into jeopardy.
Police officials said the problem preceded García’s time, but it contributed to widespread concerns about DPD’s management of evidence. The department established compliance teams, changed their storage settings and partnered with the DA’s office to address the issue.
Even with those challenges, García remained a popular local figure — spurring frantic pleas by police and city officials to keep him in Dallas when other cities courted him this year.
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