Downtown businesses and residents are getting increasing worried about the spread of crime.
Cops say Congress east of Downtown is like a war zone and crime is rapidly spreading west of Congress and into the warehouse district. Austin Police Association President Ken Casaday says there are simply not enough cops to sufficiently cover downtown. “Dirty 6th Street and Rainey Street take so many of our officers away from Thursday, Friday and Saturday Night that we don’t have a whole lot of coverage for West 6th and the entertainment district down in the 4th Street area.” While City Council has approved hiring 30 additional officers, Casaday says he agrees with studies that say the force needs at least 400 more.
More people are being encouraged to move into the downtown area but criminals are as well. Casaday says he supports high density. “However, if you’re going to pile hundreds of thousands of people downtown, you have to provide the public safety folks to work down there, especially the police department.”
Casaday says while there has been an uptick in crime downtown, “We’ve decreased the amount of shootings we’ve had downtown. But there are other issues. We’ve had stabbings, people assaulted and an enormous amount of collisions with the scooters. These are all things that take up officers’ time.” Casaday says he’d like to see more younger cops patrolling downtown.
