Shootings in Austin
It’s been a violent start to the week here in Austin. Following a shooting in southeast Austin on Sunday night that left one man dead due to an argument allegedly over a woman, police say two more people have been shot at a motel off of Jollyville. In that incident, police say, one man was killed and one woman was hospitalized.
Hours prior to that, early yesterday morning, one man was shot in the Windsor Park neighborhood suffering life threatening injuries. Austin public safety advocates are praising the recent appointment of the new interim chief of the Austin Police Department.
New APD Chief
If the City Council approves, APD Assistant Chief Joe Chacon will lead the department after outgoing Chief Brian Manley officially retires this weekend. The Greater Austin Crime Commission’s Corby Jastrow says Chacon will oversee the department as efforts to reform public safety continue and hopefully, with council’s approval, new police cadet classes.
“Our police department is in dire need of cadets and growing our police force, and we’re hopeful that happens on Thursday,” Jastrow says.
Restarting the academy will help address Austin’s crime rate and growing police response times
Living conditions at detention centers
Governor Greg Abbott continues to rail on the Biden administration about the living conditions at the federal detention centers in Texas. A former camp for oil field workers in Midland is being used by the feds as a detention center for up to 700 migrant Children. Governor Abbott says he’s been getting daily updates.
“They didn’t have any adequate running water. The reason why I say that is because the water source they were going to be using was well water that had not been used in a while. They have been informed that in that particular region of Texas that well water, if it has seepage into it, could even have arsenic in it,” says Abbott.
Abbott is sending the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to investigate. The feds have shipped in bottled water.
Candlewood Suites homeless hotel
Some local leaders have testified the capital in support of two bills filed by Georgetown State Senator Charles Schwertner. The bills are in response to Austin’s recent purchase of the Candlewood Suites Hotel in Williamson County for homeless housing.
Judge Bill Gravell tells Fox 7 the city didn’t discuss the purchase with the county then and weeks later has made no effort to do so.
“I just want to make this unequivocally clear, City of Austin you should work with us. If not, you will suffer the consequences. And today is one of those consequences,” says Schwertner.
SB-796 would require a public hearing before that kind of project would be approved. SB-646 would require cities to craft a plan in writing and submit it to counties for approval
COVID-19 update
As for coronavirus, active cases in Travis County have fallen down to 1,083 over the past day as hospitalizations remained pretty much unchanged. 151 people in the hospital today. 76,423 people have recovered out of the 78,308 confirmed cases.
Austin Public Health and Meals on Wheels are partnering up to bring vaccines to homebound seniors. Pam Morgan is 72 years old. She’s among the first people to get vaccinated through this program, and she says she hasn’t been able to go to the grocery store for at least eight months.
“I was scared to get out of the house. I was scared to let anybody in. So now I feel a little bit safer,” she says.
Austin Public Health mobile vaccination programs have already given vaccines to 66 people and the at home vaccine will be given out each Monday for the next several weeks.
AstraZeneca’s clinical vaccine trial shows 79% efficacy in preventing covid symptoms. But over in Europe, the vaccine actually has been pulled over concerns about blood clots. Dr. John Carlo the Texas Medical Association says he hasn’t seen any higher prevalence of clots among people in the US Trials.
“These studies in the US are showing no incidents of abnormal blood clotting or anything that would cause US concern at this point,” says Carlo.
AstraZeneca is expected to seek emergency use authorization from the FDA sometime next month.
The Wimberley school board has decided to hold off on lifting the mask requirement on campuses. After more than three hours of public comment just last night, the boards decided to postpone any decision until the next meeting in April. Many people, though, do appear to be in favor of doing away with mask requirements altogether.
This news and more on News Radio KLBJ:
https://omny.fm/shows/klbjam-flash-briefing-1/am-newscast-3-23-21
