Chief Eddie García retiring from Dallas police to become Austin assistant city manager

Dallas Police Chief Eddie García, a popular city leader who oversaw a dramatic downturn in violent crime over 3.5 years, is leaving to take on a public safety manager role in Austin, joining former boss T.C. Broadnax.

García, 53, will become Austin’s top executive over public safety, a position that became open last month. His move to the Austin administration now led by former Dallas City Manager Broadnax comes as Dallas officials and police navigate a year of change and grapple with recent crises.

The chief declined to comment to The Dallas Morning News. His departure came as a shock to many, including City Council members and his command staff. Community members, police and officials praised García’s legacy of annual drops in violent crime, improved morale and increased trust with residents.

He starts in Austin on Nov. 4.

In a memo to his officers Thursday obtained by The News, García said he didn’t want them to find out in this manner, but said “unfortunately, you cannot keep secrets.” He said it wasn’t an easy choice and law enforcement has shaped who he is, providing him with a strong sense of purpose, responsibility and camaraderie.

He said he’d provide more detail in the days ahead.

“Deciding to step away from this profession has been one of the most challenging decisions of my life,” García wrote to his officers. “Please know, I owe you all everything. Thank you for fighting for our city. Always on the thin blue line. It was an honor working alongside you.”

His departure comes at a pivotal time exacerbated by recent situations. 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 receive 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. In a joint public statement, Tolbert and Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson said García was “the right leader at the right time” and celebrated the annual drops in violent crime, greater police-community trust and improved morale.

“While we are sorry to see him go, we also know that big city police chiefs never stick around forever,” the statement said. “We are fortunate to have had a capable, committed, experienced, and innovative police chief these last three and a half years. We wish him the best of luck on his next journey.”

Their mission now, Tolbert and Johnson said, is to work with City Council, city staff and public safety personnel to “build upon our incredible successes,” adding: “we must begin a search for a new chief who can help us achieve our goal of making Dallas the safest major city in America.”

They did not detail when García will step down and who will take over in the interim.

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.

In a memo announcing the hire sent to Austin City Council members and obtained by The News, Broadnax said García’s “hands-on leadership style” and posture toward policing has “taken criminal elements off the streets in an unbiased way” and reduced crime.

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.

Reuben Ramirez, who recently left the department after serving as an assistant chief under García, said the city and police were fortunate to have a good leader during an important time. He said he’s grateful he and García were able to put together one of the “best wellness strategies for our department before we both left.”

“Policing is a tough position, it’s especially hard on the family and on the mind,” Ramirez said. “Making the decision to leave policing is a difficult one, so I’m proud of Chief García for knowing when the right time to leave for himself and his family was.

“He will be an asset to any department or agency he is part of. He should be thanked for his service by all of us.”

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 such as Washington, D.C., and 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. Such opposition was 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.

Antong Lucky, president of Urban Specialists, a nonprofit that advocates against violence, said they were “just breaking ground on a lot of issues.” García “wasn’t a behind-the-desk type of chief,” Lucky said, adding he ventured out to neighborhoods and “made it his business to connect with all parts of our community.”

The chief has “worked tirelessly to connect the dots and understood things from both sides of the table,” understanding how community issues, resources and crime were connected, Lucky said. As the chief met with people who didn’t have a good impression of police, Lucky said he saw their perceptions change.

Lucky hopes the next chief will share García’s “principled” qualities, noting he was saddened by the news.

”Whatever drove that decision, it took away from Dallas,” Lucky said. “Hopefully, we’ll be able to recover from this and get someone with a mindset like his … who is more of a uniter and bridger of gaps, and somebody who holds people accountable while still seeing the human side of people.”

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 its storage settings and partnered with the DA’s office to address the issue.

Creuzot told The News on Thursday he was surprised by García’s retirement. He lauded the chief’s commitment to research-based alternatives to traditional policing, declining violent crime rates and the chief’s policy to make fewer arrests for possession of less than 2 ounces of marijuana.

”This has been an easy relationship,” Creuzot said of his office’s collaboration with DPD. “We’re at different places in the criminal justice system, but we have the same approach.

”Since [García] has been here, the community’s relationship to the police department has improved.”

Even with occasional 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. His seemingly abrupt departure four months after the city touted his offer letter addendum spurred a mixed reaction from city and police leaders.

”I’m disappointed to hear it,” said council member Zarin Gracey, who said he was still processing the news.

Council member Jaynie Schultz, who said she was shocked, added: ”I am deeply disappointed in city manager Broadnax that he would do that. But everybody is an adult and they can make their own decisions and that includes Chief García.”

Andre Taylor, president of the Black Police Association of Greater Dallas, said he had no comment. Jaime Castro, president of the Dallas Police Association, did not immediately provide comment.

John Mark Davidson, chairman of Dallas’ Community Police Oversight Board, said García did a great job in Dallas, adding he was charismatic, well connected and swift with accountability. His departure is unfortunate for police oversight, Davidson said, adding they were on the cusp of change after hiring a new director.

He hopes it doesn’t take Dallas long to find a new police chief.

“It’s a tough loss for our city,” Davidson said. “It’s an abrupt leaving, which kind of left us all stunned.”

Staff writers Aria Jones, Everton Bailey Jr., Devyani Chhetri, Maggie Prosser and Chase Rogers contributed to this report.