There’s more to Austin’s Police Chief, Art Acevedo, than the badge and uniform we usually see him wearing out and in the public. He’s a Cuban American where English is his second language and stays active in the community by giving as much time as he can to non-profits across the Austin area.
A typical day for Austin’s Police Chief, Art Acevedo, begins at 7AM. “I usually go to Starbucks. I’ve got a group of guys I’ve been having coffee with for almost 8 years now because I didn’t discover them right away. It’s like the Cheers of Starbucks. It’s so funny, I call it my ‘kitchen cabinet’. I really enjoy this group of characters.” The chief adds that there is no real end of the day and “it seems like I work 7 days a week every week. In the middle of the night, ding ding ding, it’ll be me sending emails out you know at 2:00 AM in the morning to folks, which doesn’t happen all the time, but it happens enough. They learn not to leave their phones on at night for email.”
Calling Austin, Texas his home now for over eight years, Acevedo has seen the city grow exponentially. “I think that the growth has been, from an economic standpoint, a blessing for our sake. But from an infrastructure standpoint, it has been very challenging, especially when it comes to transportation infrastructure. I worry a lot as police chief because I always talk about how there’s a fine line between order and chaos and water supply. How are we going to keep so many people hydrated, so many houses supplied with water and so many businesses? That growth is really something that I would have never predicted personally. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced such quick, overwhelming growth. So I think it presents a lot of opportunities economically, but also presents challenges, especially from a public safety perspective, where we as a police department are still going very lean, in terms of staffing, that it worries me.”
When Acevedo first moved to Austin from California, he had the pleasure of meeting former Mayor Roy Butler (my grandfather). “He always wanted to drive, so I would put my seatbelt on very tightly.” Acevedo adds that he enjoyed “listening to [Roy Butler’s] stories about LBJ and his history. It’s like he was a walking, living encyclopedia of Austin, Texas and of American history. To me, because I’m a Cuban American, born in Cuba, and a product of the cold war where we are still fighting it. I really enjoyed hearing history through the eyes of someone that lived it and was a part of it.”
Comparing Texas to California, the chief adds, “I just absolutely love the ocean. I feel closer to God for some reason when I’m close to the beach.” With the beach comes surfing, “So I did go surfing. I actually got up, but I only did it once, with a long board.”
Asking how Acevedo plans to address young peoples’ perception of police in general, the chief explains, “For me it starts at home. I was raised by parents that taught us police were our friends, that way we didn’t get in trouble. You call the police. They also raised me to respect the police. My people sometimes forget that I’m an immigrant, that English is my second language. It’s really interesting when I see some progressive activists act like they know more about being a minority and they’re white. Rather than a guy that was born in a foreign country that still remembers being the only non-English speaking kid in school.” Acevedo mentions that as an organization, he encourages his officers to use every opportunity they can, “especially when dealing with young people to build those seeds of trust.”
Acevedo encourages all his officers to know more than one language. “They all receive about 40 hours where they learn some very basic phrases. And I work patrol on a regular basis. I still go on patrol, but we want to bring justice to victims of crime and suspects to justice, if it helps us by teaching our folks to communicate in another language.”
When he’s not busy protecting and serving, Acevedo enjoys working with many non-profit organizations. “I love working with scouts, Boys and Girls Club of America, the Center for Child Protection, Safe Place, and Susan G. Komen. We know that government can’t answer all the problems, so we have a responsibility as a community and society to help those that need help. So I’m going like 100 miles per hour trying to sometimes over extend myself, but it’s for worthy causes. Anything to do with kids, I’m there.” Acevedo also has three children of his own.
“One of the things that I’ve done that I’m really proud of is this picture right here, the Waterloo district. When I got here in 2007, the Waterloo district only had about 300-400 scouts. Well, I became the chair of that district and we’ve grown that to what’s fast approaching 2,000 boys. When you see these boys be part of a district that they know the police chief is really involved in, that’s something I’m really proud of, too. This heroes billboard, and not to brag, but it was my idea.”
Between being chief and giving back to the community, Acevedo enjoys, “wrestling with my 7 year old little guy. He does beat me all the time in wrestling, and he gets so proud when he finally gets me to say ‘uncle’. He enjoys beating his dad at wrestling.” When the time allows, “my biggest thing that I enjoy doing to relax is going to a good movie with a tub of popcorn. I love a good movie, and you can see from my Star Wars paraphernalia that I have here and my Star Trek paraphernalia up there, I’m a big movie buff.”
Acevedo’s father was a police officer in Cuba. “My dad was, like your grandpa, was one heck of a story teller.” The chief explains, “one of the days when he was a cop, when Cuba was not a communist state, he told a great story. I remember him telling a story once of how there was, and remember this is a little boy talking about Cuba back in the early 50’s when he was a cop, about some ghost that was stealing. And to this day I could never tell if he was telling the story for humor or it actually really happened. And he said, ‘yeah, the neighbors, this neighborhood was convinced of some ghost stealing chickens in Havana.’ He said one day he saw the ghost out there and he just started shooting up in the air to see what the ghost would do because he never saw a ghost jump fences in his life. So I mean those kinds of stories where it was humorous and it was about service. Just the fact that you can make a difference and I was raised as a kid to really appreciate the gift of freedom that this country gave us in 1960 when we got here. That I was raised with a real sense of giving back to a country that gave us the greatest gift of all, which was freedom. And so my entire life I either wanted to graduate from West Point and become a commissioner officer in the Army, be a police officer, or be a prosecutor. I ended up being a cop in 1986 and I never looked back. I absolutely love policing.”
“I remember when I started school as a little boy, I was the only non-English speaking person. And I remember the frustration of not being able to communicate and I promised myself that I was going to master the language. Then I remember when I was a little boy I went to McDonald’s, this seems really dumb, but I didn’t know French fries were called French fries. I just knew they were potatoes. And I remember the manager, because a manager wears a different color shirt and they were white. But I do remember I was asking for potatoes. ‘May I have potatoes please?’ And she just said ‘excuse me?’ They didn’t have hash browns back then, the only thing they had of a potato back in the day was French fries. That’s it. And I kept asking. This woman had me up there for over a minute frustrated asking for potatoes. And then finally she looked at me with a real snooty, ‘oh you mean French fries.’ And I remember thinking to myself, and I was just a little boy, well, ok, French fries, what else is made out of potato. But it really felt to me that she was having fun messing with a little boy who, obviously I look Hispanic, right, that obviously didn’t know that French fries were called French fries. And that’s when I made myself a promise that I’m going to learn to speak English really well and learn how to defend myself, my parents and whomever. And I haven’t shut up since.”
Art Acevedo has engaged with the public more than any other police chief has in the past. “I always tell my cops, you know I don’t expect them to agree with everything I do, but I’ll look them in the eye and I’ll look at the community and say, ‘if you want a police chief that you’ll agree with 100% of the time, then you need to be police chief.’ Because that’s not going to ever happen. But I look at people in the eye, and I’ve told this to my officers and my employees, I challenge them to look into my eyes and tell me I don’t care. And tell me that I don’t act at least, when I make a decision, that it’s not with a pure heart, with purest intentions. Are we perfect? No. Am I perfect? No. But are our intentions good? Yes. And I think people are very forgiving when they know you care and public engagement is a big part of that.”
When asked how the chief tries to keep up his energy to maintain Austin the fun and healthy city it is, he replies, “Oh God, not enough. I like to walk the trail and I love to ride bikes. I love playing basketball with my folks, which we haven’t done in a few months. But I absolutely love playing basketball. The sad thing is we’ve had foot surgeries and a lot of injuries because we’re a bunch of old men trying to play a young men’s sport.”
With more than 18,000 followers on Twitter, the chief manages to stay active daily responding to his followers on the popular social media site. “Sometimes people will send me something and be angry about something; and the fact that I actually take the time to respond, that in of itself defuses the situation. I like to talk to them about what’s going on. I like to share some of my personal life with folks because I want them to see that there’s more to Art Acevedo than being a police chief or being a police officer. I like to share a little bit of everything, a little bit of my day, when I go out on my own time, I like to share where I’m going, what I’m thinking, what I’m doing; and I like to them to see the person behind the badge, behind the uniform. Underneath the uniform.” To keep up with the police chief, follow him on Twitter: @ArtAcevedo.
Photography by John Pesina
