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This story was last updated at 5 p.m. Saturday to include what a witness saw at the time of the shooting.
The 60-person brawl between two groups of Hurricane Laura evacuees—which led to the shooting death of a bystander—was caused by an argument over a scooter, a man who said he witnessed the incident told Austonia.
Amy Lynn Warner, a 51-year-old homeless woman, was shot in the neck during the fight, according to the witness, who declined to give his name but said he lived on the streets and had a close relationship with the victim.
"There was a guy on a scooter who rode by," he said in a video interview. "Another guy got mad because he took the scooter ... [He] pulled out a gun, shot one time. Amy got shot in the neck and died on the way to the hospital."
<p><strong><br/></strong></p><p><br/></p><div class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="769b79a4165e1b471ae1a680237a94e2"><div class="fb-post" data-href="https://www.facebook.com/austonianews/posts/172210764400348"></div></div><p><br/></p><p><strong>The brawl</strong><br/></p><p>The call about the large fight came in around 12:30 a.m. on Thursday, shortly before Hurricane Laura made landfall in Louisiana as a Category 4 hurricane, knocking out power for at least half a million people in <a href="https://www.wral.com/storm-damage-in-beaumont-texas/19256595/" target="_blank">coastal Texas and Louisiana.</a></p><p>A woman was found at the scene and taken to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead around 1 a.m., police said.</p><p>"She was standing at the wrong place at the wrong time," said Austin police Lt. Jeff Greenwalt.</p><p>Detectives are interviewing witnesses and checking surveillance video. </p><p>"The information gathered thus far indicates that two groups of hurricane evacuees, one from Port Arthur and one from Beaumont, got into an argument and a large fight ensued," police said. "Individuals from both parties produced handguns. One person fired and struck a woman experiencing homelessness who happened to be nearby, but was not involved."</p><p>No other gunshot injuries were reported, according to police. Greenwalt declined to say how many shots were fired.</p><p>Police also did not say what caused the fight between the two groups. The shots were fired as police were en route, Greenwalt said.</p><p>The address of the altercation is listed as Sixth Street at Brazos. The corner includes Gold's Gym and the Driskill Hotel, along with numerous bars and restaurants close by. The shooting happened in front of the Driskill, Greenwalt said. He did not confirm that the evacuees were staying there, saying there were numerous hotels throughout the city that evacuees were using.</p><p>The city and county provided more than a thousand hotel rooms for more than 3,000 evacuees and opened up a shelter at the <a href="https://austonia.com/austin-convention-center-for-evacuees" target="_self">Austin Convention Center</a> on second street overnight.</p><p><strong>The victim</strong> </p><p>Warner was well known on Sixth Street among the street artists and homeless population, many of whom described her as quirky and friendly and intensely proud of her adult son.</p><p>"She had been through a lot, but she was always smiling," said Justine Decker, who works with homeless artists near the corner where Warner was shot. "She always asked me what I was painting, and she was very encouraging."</p><p>Warner had been on the streets of Austin at least five years, according to one man who asked not to be named. The aforementioned witness said her life was hard on the street—especially because she was small in stature.</p><p>Decker said she and others who knew her were trying to locate her son to let him know.</p><p><strong>The arrest</strong></p><p>Police announced Friday the arrest of 21-year old Linton Alexander, who is accused of Warner's death.</p><p><br/></p><div class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="754daaefb134ed7fa662dacdc69dedc7" id="4d895"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-partner="rebelmouse" data-twitter-tweet-id="1299485977392619522"><div style="margin:1em 0">UPDATE: APD arrests 21-year-old Linton Wilson Alexander (Homicide #32).
The decedent has been identified as Amy L… https://t.co/bXyCERZy0l</div> — Austin Police Department (@Austin Police Department)<a href="https://twitter.com/Austin_Police/statuses/1299485977392619522">1598656574.0</a></blockquote></div><p><br/></p><p>Police did not release where or when Alexander was arrested, or where he lives.</p><p>It is one of three homicides Austin police were investigating in a 12-hour period. The other two homicides to happen on Wednesday involved people who knew each other, Greenwalt said. There have been 33 homicides in Austin this year.</p>
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(Kevin Ludlow/YouTube)
Followup to the Problems in Windsor Park Creek (2 weeks after cleanup)
A homeless encampment in Austin's Windsor Park neighborhood is accumulating trash after a cleanup effort earlier this month.
<p>Kevin Ludlow, a resident and former Libertarian candidate for the Texas House, first <a href="https://austonia.com/austin-homeless-problem-camp" target="_self">posted a video of the encampment</a>, which abuts his backyard in Windsor Park, on Aug. 2. The footage showed a large amount of trash as well as homeless residents engaged in substance use. It has since been viewed more than 72,000 times and shared widely on social media sites.</p><p>After the video was posted, the city's watershed protection department contracted a local nonprofit, The Other Ones Foundations, to <a href="https://austonia.com/austin-homelessness-windsor-park" target="_self">clean up the site</a>, which is along Little Tannehill Branch Creek between Broadmoor Drive and 52nd Street. Work crews removed tons of trash.</p><p>"The area was spotless on Aug. 9," Ludlow said in an updated video posted on Tuesday, showing what has happened at the site since the clean-up effort.</p><p>New campers began arriving Aug. 12, Ludlow said in voiceover. Last week, clothes and garbage began piling up, and he recorded what appears to be substance use and nudity.<br/></p><p>"I don't believe the campers should be arrested nor do I believe that we should criminalize homelessness in any way," Ludlow said in the video, adding that given the increase in property taxes in recent years the city should have adequate funding to address the issue. "There is simply no way that a solution to this problem cannot be found with that bump in revenue to the City of Austin." </p><p>Windsor Park Neighborhood Association President Dan Strub previously told Austonia that the encampment has been around for years and many residents are reluctant to call the police "about much of anything that isn't directly crime-related these days." </p>
A fight over public camping
<p>Austin residents facing issues related to homeless encampments are encouraged to call the emergency 311 line. But there is little that city officials or police can do to <a href="https://austonia.com/new-report-urges-more-humane-approaches-to-austin-homeless-struggles" target="_self">force campers elsewhere</a>. Last year, Austin City Council abolished the city's ban on public camping. </p><p>A local nonprofit, Save Austin Now, tried to overturn this ban via a citizen-led petition. However, Austin City Clerk Jannette Goodall <a href="https://austonia.com/austin-texas-homeless-petition" target="_self">recently ruled</a> that the petition is not valid due to duplicate signatures and other issues. </p><p>The group, led by Travis County GOP Chairperson Matt Mackowiak, is <a href="https://austonia.com/austin-homelessness-petition-election" target="_self">considering legal action</a> but is up against a deadline; the Nov. 3 election is just over nine weeks away. </p><p>"We do not believe there is ANY CHANCE WHATSOEVER that 5,000+ signed petitions of the 24,000+ that we submitted were invalid," Mackowiak wrote in <a href="https://www.facebook.com/SaveAustinNow/posts/167946008140177?__tn__=K-R" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">an Aug. 20 Facebook post</a>. "We are not going to accept what has happened here."</p><p>The group is waiting for the city to respond to a public information request before deciding on its next steps. </p><p>If the court orders the city to place an item on the November ballot, it will, a spokesperson wrote to Austonia in an email last week. </p><p>Goodall, however, is confident in her decision. "The probability that checking all 24,201 submitted signatures would find a total of at least 20,000 valid signatures in less than 3 in one billion," she wrote in the ruling.</p>From Your Site Articles
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(Kevin Ludlow)
Resident Kevin Ludlow collected video footage of a homeless encampment in the Windsor Park neighborhood over many months before compiling and posting it to YouTube and Facebook.
Nearly 28,000 people have viewed a four-minute YouTube video about "massive problems"—including trash, drug use, fires and human waste behind backyard fences—caused by a homeless encampment in Austin's Windsor Park neighborhood.
<p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-youtube">
<span class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9d68420c0627bfee04e7972d1e4affd4" style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" type="lazy-iframe" scrolling="no" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xbsXgU6PO6U?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe></span>
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">Massive problems in the Windsor Park creek</small>
<small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbsXgU6PO6U&app=desktop" target="_blank">www.youtube.com</a>
</small>
</p><p><br/></p><p>Kevin Ludlow, a Windsor Park resident and former Libertarian candidate for the Texas House, filmed the growing encampment over several months. He compiled the video, titled "Massive problems in the Windsor Park creek," to share on a private neighborhood Facebook group.<br/></p><p>Shortly after it was posted on Sunday, someone <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Austin/comments/i2wnyw/video_showing_the_progression_of_a_homeless_camp/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x" target="_blank">shared it on Reddit</a>, where it has garnered more than 1,400 comments.</p><p>Ludlow said he posted the video after spending months speaking with people who live in the encampment and filming its expansion. </p><p><br/></p><div class="rm-embed embed-media"><blockquote class="reddit-card" data-card-created="1596637351"><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Austin/comments/i43lhr/i_created_that_video_of_the_homeless_camp_you_may/">I created that video of the homeless camp you may have watched yesterday. Here is an interview with one of the women who lives in the camp so you can really get a feel for what it's like back there.</a> from <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/Austin">r/Austin</a></blockquote><script async="" charset="UTF-8" src="//embed.redditmedia.com/widgets/platform.js"></script></div><p><br/></p><p>Although he sympathizes with their plight, Ludlow said, he also worries about violence and other risky behaviors. </p><p>A fire in the encampment on June 21 that could have damaged the neighboring homes had it been allowed to spread, he said, and the recent killing of a 58-year-old woman on nearby East 51st Street <a href="https://www.austintexas.gov/news/homicide-27-update" target="_blank">on July 20</a> also concerns him. Austin police arrested a 23-year-old man in connection with the killing, which happened at night outside her apartment, but did not describe a motive. </p><p>The video also shows a growing collection of trash, syringes and feces, which Ludlow said runs into the backyards of the mid-Austin neighborhood east of I-35. </p><p>"For as much sympathy as I have for the people who are out there, surely we shouldn't be subjected to having thousands of pounds of human excrement dumped on our property," he said.</p><p>Ludlow said more should be done to address the issue, though he recognizes the city faces challenges.</p><p>"I think they want to do something," he said. "I just don't think they have a tenable solution that's available to them."</p><p><br/></p><div class="rm-embed embed-media"><blockquote class="reddit-card" data-card-created="1596567982"><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Austin/comments/i2wnyw/video_showing_the_progression_of_a_homeless_camp/">Video showing the progression of a homeless camp in Windsor park.</a> from <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/Austin">r/Austin</a></blockquote><script async="" charset="UTF-8" src="//embed.redditmedia.com/widgets/platform.js"></script></div><p><br/></p><p><strong>In search of a solution</strong></p><p>Austin residents facing issues related to encampments are encouraged to call the nonemergency 311 line. Due to the pandemic, however, the city has implemented a moratorium on clean-up efforts.<br/></p><p>The city's watershed protection department, which last cleaned the encampment in Windsor Park in early March, plans to go to the council next month to secure funding for an emergency contract, which would allow its staff to resume cleanups with new COVID protocols, a spokesperson wrote in an email to Austonia.</p><p>The <a href="http://www.windsorpark.info/" target="_blank">Windsor Park Neighborhood Association</a> plans to discuss solutions at a meeting this Saturday, which was planned before Ludlow's video was shared.</p><p>"I've been here for 18 years," the group's president, Dan Strub, told Austonia. "[The encampment] goes back as far as I can remember." </p><p>While the encampment has grown in the last year or two, Strub said, residents are reluctant to call the police "about much of anything that isn't directly crime-related these days."</p><p>The Windsor Park encampment sits on public property - along Little Tannehill Branch Creek, between Broadmoor Drive and 52nd Street, Strub said. </p><p>There is<a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2019/11/04/gov-greg-abbots-cleaning-homeless-camps-sets-back-some-austinites/" target="_blank"> little that city officials or police can do</a> to force campers elsewhere for now. Last year, the Austin City Council abolished the city's ban on public camping, but a petition aimed at reinstating the ban <a href="https://austonia.com/austin-homeless-camps" target="_self">received 24,000 signatures</a> and may lead to a referendum in November.</p><p>On Tuesday, a consultant <a href="https://austonia.com/new-report-urges-more-humane-approaches-to-austin-homeless-struggles" target="_self">hired to study the city's homeless problem</a> told the Austin City Council that punitive measures like encampment sweeps are ineffective and should be replaced with more trash pick-ups and on-site safe-needle exchanges.</p><p>While not everyone agrees on allowing public camping, Strub said, he believes the neighbors are interested in helping the homeless community rather than penalizing it.</p><p>"I think there are a lot of folks in this neighborhood who are very sympathetic to that view," Strub said.</p>
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As Austin struggles to deal with the growing issue of homelessness, a new report by a national consulting firm released Thursday urges a "more humane, person-centered" approach that will bring "more efficient and effective outcomes than the more punitive policies" traditionally used by major cities to get homeless people off the streets.
<p>The city commissioned the 75-page report by Barbara Poppe and Associates—titled<em> </em><a href="http://www.austintexas.gov/edims/pio/document.cfm?id=344008" target="_blank">Investing for Results: Priorities and Recommendations for a Systems Approach to End Homelessness</a>—in January. It details an extensive plan for aligning the goals of the city's 2018 Action Plan to End Homelessness.</p><p><a href="https://www.austintexas.gov/sites/default/files/files/180723-Action-Plan-to-end-Homelessness.pdf" target="_blank">The Action plan</a> culminated more than a year of work by the Ending Community Homelessness Coalition group and other stakeholders in the issue. </p><p>The city also announced Thursday the creation of the new group, Austin's Public-Private Partnership Task Force to End Homelessness (P3 Homelessness Task Force), focused on reviewing and implementing recommendations in the report. The group includes <a href="https://austintexas.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=1861810ce1dca1a4c1673747c&id=52367aad0f&e=e85eed572c" target="_blank">ECHO</a>; <a href="https://austintexas.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=1861810ce1dca1a4c1673747c&id=ad6494c60d&e=e85eed572c" target="_blank">Caritas of Austin</a>; <a href="https://austintexas.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=1861810ce1dca1a4c1673747c&id=21a3ecf0b8&e=e85eed572c" target="_blank">Downtown Austin Alliance</a>; <a href="https://austintexas.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=1861810ce1dca1a4c1673747c&id=076e813c5a&e=e85eed572c" target="_blank">Front Steps</a>; <a href="https://austintexas.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=1861810ce1dca1a4c1673747c&id=4348cf7a26&e=e85eed572c" target="_blank">Integral Care</a>; <a href="https://austintexas.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=1861810ce1dca1a4c1673747c&id=d0a7e04dff&e=e85eed572c" target="_blank">LifeWorks</a>; and the <a href="https://austintexas.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=1861810ce1dca1a4c1673747c&id=ac752bc62e&e=e85eed572c" target="_blank">Salvation Army</a>.</p><p>The issue is at the forefront as Austin city officials face <a href="https://austonia.com/austin-homeless-camps" target="_blank">a possible ballot measure </a>in November that would ban camping in public spaces in the city, reversing action taken by the Austin City Council less than a year ago. </p><p>The move was an attempt to address a burgeoning problem, which the new report says can partly be attributed to housing costs rising faster than wages, but it drew as much fire as it did praise. </p><p>Austonia asked its readers this week where they stand on a ban on public camping. The results? Nearly 80% said they would support it. <a href="https://austonia.com/poll-results-homeless-camping" target="_blank">See those full results here.</a></p>
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(Charlie L. Harper III/Austonia)
Leaders of the local nonprofit group "Save Austin Now" said Monday their effort to roll back a year-old city ordinance allowing camping in public spaces has drawn 24,000 petition signatures, well over the amount needed to put their initiative on the ballot in November.
<p>City officials confirmed that the group submitted the petition, which needs 20,000 validated signatures to get ballot consideration, but said it could take weeks for all the signatures to be certified. </p><p>"We are ecstatic to have turned in so many signed petitions from every neighborhood, every zip code, and every demographic across our city from residents who just want to live in a safe city," said Save Austin Now co-founder Matt Mackowiak, who is also chairman of the Travis County Republican Party. "The homeless camping ordinance has been a disaster for our city."</p><p>Last summer, the Austin City Council abolished the city's ban on public sitting, panhandling, lying and camping after <a href="https://www.austinmonitor.com/stories/2019/06/council-postpones-vote-on-camping-panhandling-ordinance/" target="_blank">homeless advocates</a> said such bans criminalize people who live on the street, and trap them there by making them targets for police action and creating criminal records. </p><p>In October, the council revisited the issue and limited where camping was allowed, banning it from sidewalks, near houses, near the Austin Resource Center for the Homeless and other shelters, and outside businesses during operating hours, among other limits. </p><p>In a texting campaign, Travis County Democrats have accused the group of misleading the public in order to get more signatures and as late as Monday urged recipients to call the Travis County Clerk's office to have their signatures removed. But a city spokesman said that once the petition is submitted, signatures cannot be removed. </p><p>Local Democratic party officials could not be reached to comment on Monday.</p><p>Mackowiak said the effort is bipartisan and has no agenda beyond prohibiting tents on city streets and sidewalks, under highway overpasses and along medians. </p><p>If the petition is certified, voters will get to decide on whether to roll back ordinances to where they were before the ban was lifted in June 2019—no panhandling at night, no public camping, no sitting or lying in public places. </p><p>"This is a standard of living issue for every neighborhood in Austin," said Save Austin Now co-founder Cleo Petricek, who describes herself as a lifelong Democrat. "There is no partisan angle to wanting a safe neighborhood."<br/></p>
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graph by Emma Freer
The 2020 Zandan poll found that 47% of respondents think Austin is headed in the wrong direction, which is a radical change from three years earlier
by Rich Oppel
Question No. 1 on the annual Zandan poll gets right to the heart of the issue.
Q: Thinking about Austin today, do you think things are headed in the right direction or off on the wrong track?
The answers:
<p><br/><br/>Wrong track: 47%<br/>Right direction: 39%<br/>Don't know: 14%<br/><br/>That's a radical change from 2017, when the numbers were flipped: Back then, only 35% of Austin-area respondents said Austin was on the wrong track. A majority, 52%, said Austin was on the right track. And 13% said they didn't know.</p><p>These numbers have got to give Mayor Steve Adler and members of the Austin City Council pause. And where do they come from? <br/><br/>Peter Zandan, global vice chairman of Hill + Knowlton Strategies, and a long-time Austin resident since 1977, conducted the poll. He has sponsored the survey, which he pays for personally, over the years. His last poll was in 2017. <br/><br/>The poll of 801 Austin-area residents was in the field between February 17 and March 5. The respondents were drawn from the Austin Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), which includes surrounding counties. <br/><br/>That 12% increase in residents finding the city on the wrong track was striking to Zandan, who earned master's and doctoral degrees from the University of Texas-Austin.<br/><br/>"This has been a city of optimism and support, and the shift is palpable," he said in an interview. "This reflects a shift in the public and cultural Austin. On some level we thrive, but that success is not for everyone. And you can see the divide by age, length of residence and time here." <br/><br/>To see what Zandan is talking about, just take one response—Austin is on the "wrong track"--and see how that varies among respondents: <br/><br/>All respondents, 47%<br/>Age 18-34, 28%<br/>Age 35+, 55%<br/>City of Austin resident, 43%<br/>Non-resident, 52%<br/>0-5 years in Austin, 35%<br/>6-20 years in Austin, 42%<br/>21+ years in Austin, 57%<br/><br/>Respondents are gloomy about Austin's future. Fully 50% said they thought that in five years living in Austin for most people will be worse. Here, younger people, city residents and newcomers to Austin were more optimistic about the future than older people and residents outside the city but in the MSA. <br/><br/>Is there any happy news in the data? Sure. <br/><br/>Q. Compared to other U.S. cities, do you think Austin is a better or worse place to raise a family? All counted, 42% said better. Across all categories, 39% to 51% agreed. The response was most favorable among new arrivals, with 51% of those here 0-5 years saying yes.</p>
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photo by Charlie L. Harper III
A homeless camp under I-35 at 7th Street on Tuesday, March 31, 2020, as sparse traffic travels overhead during what would, in normal times, be Austin rush hour. (Charlie Harper III)
Fifteen years ago when Peter Zandan would come out with an Austin poll, we would assign it to two of our very best journalists—Marie Henson and Bill Bishop—and display the resulting articles on the Austin American-Statesman's Sunday front page.
A big deal.
This year, the "Zandan Poll, Voices of the Austin Community," didn't get much press. Yet results of the 2020 poll are very striking—and tell us so much about how our great city is changing.
Here's what I found most startling:
<p>Zandan asked: Which one of the following do you consider the top thing Austin has GAINED due to its growth over the past five years? </p><p>An overwhelming 38% of respondents said "larger homeless population." In 2017, when Zandan took the last Austin poll, homelessness was so far below the radar that he didn't even include the choice in his list of possible responses. The other leading choices he provided, in 2017 and in 2020, were: "strong economy," which declined from 20% in 2017 to 15% in 2020; creation of new jobs, down from 19% to 15%; big city feel, dropping from 14% to 9%; and racial and ethnic diversity, falling from 13% to 6%. Again, these were presented as "GAINS due to growth…' </p><p>"Homelessness just stands out as a defining issue when people think of Austin," Zandan told me in an interview. We will be interested in what the mayor and city council think of these numbers. </p><p>After talking with a person familiar with events, who declined to be identified because his work involves dealing with city leaders, I'll take a stab at what happened. In June 2019, the Austin City Council voted to allow the homeless to sit, lie and camp in public. Almost overnight, the homeless appeared. The suddenness was startling. The mayor and council had not prepared citizens for the change. And, in Zandan's data, we see the results.</p><p>After I left the <em>Statesman</em>, I worked at Public Strategies, Inc., Austin's premier strategic consulting company, from 2009-2012. PSI later merged with Hill & Knowlton as H+K Strategies Inc., led through those times by founder Jack Martin. Zandan was my colleague at the firm back then, and still works for H+K. </p><p>But Zandan pays for this poll on his own nickel, as a service to the Austin community. </p><p>A note on methodology: Cambia Information Group interviewed 801 people, drawn from the entire Austin Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). Interviewing was conducted between Feb. 17 and March 5. </p>Next: Is Austin on the right track or the wrong track? Austin-area residents speak, and clearly.
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