Whipped Cream Difficulties

The Austin Public Safety Commission passed, on a 5-0 vote, a resolution recommending that the Austin City Council provide funding and set up a process for review of “cold” cases outside of APD. (One member abstained from voting.)

This raises some questions:

1. Who is the “Austin Public Safety Commission”? Are they the people who do the gun buybacks?

Answer: No, the gun buybacks are the “Greater Austin Crime Commission”. The “Austin Public Safety Commission” is a city organization that serves as an “advisory body to the city council on all budgetary and policy matters concerning public safety”.

2. What “cold” cases are they looking to have re-examined?

If you said “the yogurt shop murders” to start with, take two gold stars and advance to the next blue square.

3. Why do they want an external review of these cases? Do they not trust the APD? If so, isn’t that a problem that should be addressed?

Interesting question. Kim Rossmo is the vice chairman of the commission.

“Groupthink” within the Police Department has hindered progress in the investigation, Rossmo told fellow commissioners. He said that investigators had failed to take a fresh look at the case, even as poor evidence gathered from a crime scene damaged from fire and water had contributed to faulty theories against the four teenagers originally arrested in the crimes, Rossmo said.

4. Is this a good idea?

I’m not sure I can judge this. Having a fresh pair of eyes to look at complicated stuff always seems like a good idea. But the case is 20 years old now; how many people have looked at it? Not just within APD, but outside of the department? Is there really a lot of evidence for Rossmo’s theory of “groupthink”? On the other hand, did the APD really push a weak case because they were looking to close a red ball?

I’m inclined to think that the case probably can’t be solved at this point, and I’m not sure how much good another set of eyes would actually do. Color me both skeptical and happy if I’m proven wrong.