Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis said the premature lifting of the shelter in place warning on Sep. 10 was the result of miscommunication during a shift change.
AUSTIN, Texas — Austin Police say human error and poor communication led to conflicting emergency alerts during a shooting incident near Zilker Park last month.
Leaders now say there’s work underway to prevent similar mistakes from happening again.
On Sept. 10, investigators say Brandon Thompson allegedly shot a woman and an Austin police officer before fleeing into the Barton Hills neighborhood. The Austin Police Department sent out a shelter-in-place alert during the search, but it was mistakenly lifted. The alert was quickly reissued, but confusion unfolded as children were already arriving at school nearby in the area.
Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis said the premature lifting of the alert was the result of miscommunication and human error between staff during a shift change at the time.
“It was a series of seriously unfortunate events that occurred,” Davis said.
Going forward, Davis says only command staff, such as an assistant police chief, will be authorized to make changes to emergency notifications, not just whomever is on shift at the time.
Davis said the department also plans to meet monthly with Austin ISD’s police chief to close communication gaps and learn from mistakes that were made.
Even with an AISD officer present at the command post as soon as the shooting incident occurred, Davis says it wasn’t enough and communication still failed.
“Let’s stop talking about AISD’s responsibility and APD’s– we are all responsible. Those kids are walking, so what if they do close the school then? What happens when kids are about walking, or those that didn’t happen to get that message; it was brought up in one of our school meetings,” Davis said. “How do we go about doing a real door-to-door, or are we just assuming that people are going to have their cell phone and get notified? So, it’s really about how we can get more personal with this information.”
Currently, alerts are pushed out through the “Warn Central Texas” app, which requires residents to sign up. Davis said APD is looking for ways to send messages that reach people, without needing people to sign up on an individual basis.
“We seem to do a good job when there’s bad weather, but how do we do it with crime?,” Davis asked.