Tagged: Crime

Travis County officials say a 53-year-old woman died at the Travis County Correctional Complex located just east of the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.

Laureen Butler from New Orleans was found unresponsive at around 3 a.m. Friday morning. Jail medical staff were called to the scene. The staff also called Austin/Travis County EMS and began administering lifesaving measures. EMS arrived on the scene a short time later but Butler was pronounced dead at 4:24 a.m.

Austin police are hosting a "community walk" Saturday through an area of the city infamous for its open-air drug market. APD has targeted the area of 12th and Chicon Streets since last year with a so-called Drug Market Intervention program modeled after an effort in High Point, North Carolina.  

The program allows non-violent drug dealers to have their criminal cases suspended if they agree to work with family members or community groups to receive drug treatment and job training. The program got up and running last year after local law enforcement saw it had been used across the country with impressive results, the Austin Chronicle reported in an extensive piece last July. 

In the two weeks since the Boston Marathon bombing, suspects have been identified and news outlets have interviewed people who knew them – asking if there was any sign that they might be capable of the attacks.

The same questions were asked after the Newtown Elementary School shooting.

Update: Austin Police have identified the man killed by police last night as 54-year-old Herbert Babelay.

Original Story (April 24, 8:23 a.m.): Four Austin Police Officers involved in a fatal shooting last night are on paid administrative leave. The officers shot and killed a man who they say pointed a rifle at them.

It happened in southeast Austin – in the 700 block of Valdez. Police were called to that address at 8:40 p.m. on a report of a homicidal or suicidal man.

This weekend, a man hijacked a Capital Metro bus – resulting in a police pursuit that lead to Bastrop before the hijacker killed himself.

Today, Capital Metro announced the man that took the bus was one of their own: Salvador Martinez, a bus operator employed by Cap Metro contractor McDonald Transit. Martinez’s tenure with Cap Metro dated back to 1998.