Retired APD officers working special events, like marathon, amid staffing shortage

With more than 350 active vacancies at the Austin Police Department, according to an Austin city council member, retired police officers are now stepping in to help staff special events.

AUSTIN (KXAN) — With more than 350 active vacancies at the Austin Police Department, according to an Austin city council member, retired police officers are now stepping in to help staff special events.

It's an idea that was proposed last year, passed by Austin City Council last summer, and has now been utilized at least once — at Austin City Limits. While the Austin Police Department wouldn't talk about staffing for the Austin Marathon ahead of the event, citing security concerns, the marathon was another major event the city talked about using the retired officers for when the initiative passed.

"We have a limited amount of people that we can actually put on patrol at this time and so the City of Austin created a 'reserve police force' where we could utilize retired officers to fulfil some duties that patrol officers wouldn't have to fill," said Austin City Council Member Mackenzie Kelly, who helped push for the initiative last year.

The Austin Police Department said there are currently 15 retired officers in the reserve program. Kelly said there were additional officers in modified training. In total, 75 positions were approved.

The retired officers, which have to go through a modified training and meet certain criteria, are only called upon to work special events. They're uniformed, and have the same equipment a standard patrol officer would have.

"They're just a little more seasoned but realistically the public probably didn't and couldn't tell the difference. Which is good, which is what we want," said Dennis Farris, the president of the Austin Police Retired Officers Association.

Those officers help with tasks like manning barricades and helping with traffic control, if the police department doesn't have enough patrol officers. It also helps with law enforcement visibility at major events where large crowds of people gather.

"When you have a heavy police presence, or you have a police presence at a special event, the run, you have people at the intersections and things like that…look people tend to not commit crimes right in front of cops. They just don't," Farris said.