Garcia was chosen as the Dallas police chief in 2021. After three years and eight months of work admired by many, he followed former Dallas City Manager T.C. Broadnax down to Austin in November 2024. Now, just eight months later, he might be making his way back to us, or at least next to us.
At his farewell party, Garcia declared a retirement from law enforcement, which is looking more like a sabbatical now, and lamented never wearing a uniform again.
"Not wearing this uniform will be very odd, you know; trying to figure out what I'm going to wear to work is not going to be easy," he said at the ceremony.
We hope he kept his Men’s Warehouse receipts.
In the almost four years, Garcia launched a Violent Crime Reduction Plan, which witnessed a 19% decrease in violent crime citywide. He instituted a Wellness Unit, a unique program to offer officers assistance with trauma, mental health and substance abuse issues after a slew of his officers were arrested for alcohol-related offenses and domestic violence. Mayor Eric Johnson described him as the “perfect police chief at the perfect time.”How is Eddie Garcia in the mix? Didn’t he just take a city manager job in Austin? Austin probably too big of a sh*thole for him. Can’t do nothing about that. lol
— Chris Brooks (@ChrisPBrooks) July 15, 2025
Garcia high-tailed it out of Dallas right before the controversial HERO propositions passed, successfully avoiding pressure to rapidly recruit and retain officers or face litigation. Garcia was an outspoken opponent of the amendments before their passage, and they’ve remained among the primary concerns for the new chief, Daniel Comeaux.
“I worry that the charter amendments that will appear on the November ballot, known as the HERO propositions, have impacted this decision,” City Council member Adam Bazaldua wrote in a social media post about Garcia’s resignation. “Chief Garcia has been outspoken about the fact that should these propositions pass, they would debilitate our city and require an unsustainable hiring mandate that the police department cannot keep up with, and could reduce the quality of officers we attract.”
The HERO amendments were not the only items on the November ballot that Garcia disapproved of. He said Proposition R, which decriminalized up to 4 ounces of marijuana, was far too generous and would enable drug dealers.
"Who prospers? Drug dealers. Drug houses prosper," he said to the council in August 2024. "Drug houses and dealers who are already tarnishing lives in our most at-risk neighborhoods."
Other candidates for Fort Worth police chief include interim Fort Worth Chief Robert Alldredge, former Dallas Deputy Chief Vernon Hale, Los Angeles Deputy Chief Emada Tingirides and one unnamed contender.
The move to Austin felt like a stab in the back, but a potential relocation to Fort Worth drives the blade even deeper. The Fort Worth Police Department fired metaphorical shots at our department in a spoofed version of Kendrick Lamar’s diss track, “Not Like Us,” where they mocked Dallas' recruitment problems. We’ll leave you with this line from the song, which aged especially poorly.
“Every time we open up, we fill up when we hire.”
