Austin apartment complex gets repeatedly hit by thieves breaking into apartments and cars night after night. Last year they had repeated transient break-ins through a hole in the fence, and this year two individuals seem to be the same ones breaking into cars over and over again.
So a woman gathered video evidence of the twp suspects. Austin police response? “This is not a high priority case.” And they wouldn’t look at her videos.
The apartments appear to be those off Riata Trace Blvd., which is about a mile from my house.
Years of understaffing, coddling crime in the name of “social justice” and luring more drug-addicted transients to Austin have put APD in a bind, as they don’t have enough manpower to protect life, liberty and property.
That won’t change because the Austin City Council doesn’t want it to change.
Tags: Austin, Austin Police Department, Crime, homeless, police, video
The Austin City Council doesn’t want it to change because the people of Austin don’t want it to change. This will take more than voting to correct.
I guarantee you, however, that were something nasty to happen to those hoodlum thieves, then they’d somehow find the time and the money to investigate that.
One of the counters to “anarcho-tyranny” would be to simply make it way more expensive for the “system” not to deal with the criminal element responsibly.
So, you can be jailed for killing a thief. Got it. What happens if I stop short of killing him, and just render him unable to continue his life of crime? How much of a criminal would he be, were he rendered effectively brain-dead via the good services of anoxia or carbon dioxide poisoning? How about an ice-pick lobotomy, delivered in the field and leaving the criminal alive, yet incapable of further crime?
I wonder what the laws say about all that? How would they prove that someone had performed a field lobotomy, or just cut off their air long enough to cause extensive brain damage? Who would care, really?
How long would it take for the system to realize the costs of warehousing these once-criminal types, and begin to police effectively again?
Just asking for friends, ya know… Is it murder, if the husk still lives? I think we may get to explore this facet of law, before long.
“That won’t change because the Austin City Council doesn’t want it to change.”
The people of Austin (including, statistically, a high percentage of the people living in those apartments) voted for it, and they’re getting it good and hard. I hope you never tire of pointing that out to your liberal neighbors.
In the meantime, why haven’t the residents taken more effective approaches: have the apartment complex fix the fence? Next time the guys come in to break into cars, greet them with a 7-11 style beatdown – they’ll go elsewhere.
Instead of fixing the fence, the management company is going to get license plate readers even though the thieves are on foot.
And convincing the thieves to go somewhere else just sends them “about a mile” down the road.
While Texas law permits use of deadly force to stop burglary or theft during the nighttime under many circumstances, use of nondeadly force is also permitted.
What would be interesting is if the complex sent the City / APD / Travis County DA (cc: to Texas AG) a letter documenting that it has repeatedly asked for the police to address the matter but they refuse to do anything, and therefore the property owner will have to do so. Specifically reference the provisions of the Texas Penal Code authorizing deadly and nondeadly force to protect property, and inform the City that such will start to be employed to stop crimes that APD refuses to even investigate, much less make arrests.
Then have licensed security guards set up to light up the perpetrators with nonlethal (but painful) tazers / sandbag rounds / pepper balls (with sidearms in place to escalate to deadly force if the perps do likewise).
How much do you want to bet that the possibility of citizens starting to act in lieu of APD matter would cause the matter to become a priority for APD? The last thing they want is private persons legally employing force to deal with these folks.
Additionally, I strongly suspect that after getting tazed or pepper sprayed, or taking a sandbag / beanbag round to the chest / thighs / back (or even the possibility that it could occur), these two would choose to go elsewhere.
Alternative: get a friendly state rep to ask the Texas AG’s office for an advisory opinion concerning / confirming the legality of using both deadly and nondeadly force to stop the indicated crimes in this situation, especially in light of ADP’s unwillingness to even investigate.
Alternative / addition: Start papering the Travis County DA (with cc:’s the the Texas AG’s office) that its refusal to enforce the law in this area, which raises the potential that an action could be brought to remove him from office under the new “Anti-Soros DA” law that goes into effect shortly.
I would advise against using deadly force against someone breaking into your car in a parking lot. Texas has a castle doctrine, but only for break-ins of occupied homes or vehicles. To wit:
So shooting someone breaking into your parked, unoccupied car is not specifically protected under the Castle Doctrine. And since the apartment complexes in question lie in Travis County rather than Williamson County, it’s quite likely that Travis County DA Jose Garza would charge law-abiding citizens using deadly force to protect their property.
The relevant Texas law is not the Castle Doctrine of TPC 9.31, but the unique Texas laws concerning use of force / deadly force to protect property. From the Texas Penal Code:
Sec. 9.41. PROTECTION OF ONE’S OWN PROPERTY. (a) A person in lawful possession of land or tangible, movable property is justified in using force against another when and to the degree the actor reasonably believes the force is immediately necessary to prevent or terminate the other’s trespass on the land or unlawful interference with the property.
(b) A person unlawfully dispossessed of land or tangible, movable property by another is justified in using force against the other when and to the degree the actor reasonably believes the force is immediately necessary to reenter the land or recover the property if the actor uses the force immediately or in fresh pursuit after the dispossession and:
(1) the actor reasonably believes the other had no claim of right when he dispossessed the actor; or
(2) the other accomplished the dispossession by using force, threat, or fraud against the actor.
Sec. 9.42. DEADLY FORCE TO PROTECT PROPERTY. A person is justified in using deadly force against another to protect land or tangible, movable property:
(1) if he would be justified in using force against the other under Section 9.41; and
(2) when and to the degree he reasonably believes the deadly force is immediately necessary:
(A) to prevent the other’s imminent commission of arson, burglary, robbery, aggravated robbery, theft during the nighttime, or criminal mischief during the nighttime; or
(B) to prevent the other who is fleeing immediately after committing burglary, robbery, aggravated robbery, or theft during the nighttime from escaping with the property; and
(3) he reasonably believes that:
(A) the land or property cannot be protected or recovered by any other means; or
(B) the use of force other than deadly force to protect or recover the land or property would expose the actor or another to a substantial risk of death or serious bodily injury.
Note that it allows the use of deadly force to stop theft at nighttime or criminal mischief at nighttime. Note also that the refusal of the police to do anything implicates the justification of subsection (3)(B); i.e., the police will not protect against the risk of violence by the perps.
Obviously, in a use of deadly force, the Travis County DA will likely be unwilling to recognize this law, so the case would have to be set up very carefully. But use of things like tasers, fire hoses, and other nonlethal means that deliver a pain penalty to dissuade the perp fall under a much clearer legal justification, especially given evidence that relying on the police will not prevent or stop the commission of the crime.
Again, this would be a serious step, and so anyone contemplating this needs to consult counsel BEFORE deciding to take such action.
Y’all really, truly think that people are going to start worrying about the law, when the law has ceased to care about them?
That’s precious, that is. People are getting fed the f*ck up; that bit above, about basically pithing criminal humans? That’s more than just speculation, on my part; per what rumors I’ve heard, that’s already going on. Someone already did it to several street people in the Puget Sound area that were manifesting as “dangerous”, per what I’ve heard via the grapevine. Might be exaggerated; might be wrong… I don’t know. But, the fact that people are talking about it? Not what I’d term a good sign.
Trust me on this: You don’t want to live in a world where there’s free-lance street justice. The idiots like all the Soros-supported DA’s are taking us right to there, on an express elevator to Hell.
Mr. Person:
I’d be curious to see if an attorney in criminal law could assess the following hypothetical.
Let’s say that somebody comes home from an extremely long drive and parks their car in this garage. Feeling tired and fatigued from travel, they put their seatback down “for just a second, to rest their eyes” and fall asleep. They awaken to the sound of shattering glass and the sensation of being covered in broken shards of window. There directly at their side, wielding a weapon (maybe a baseball bat, maybe a piece of rebar, who knows) is the thug who just broke their car window and is reaching inside. The car occupant draws their (legally carried) firearm and fire a single shot into center of mass, stopping the attack.
This would seem to be covered under the “…unlawfully and with force entered, or was attempting to enter unlawfully and with force, the actor’s occupied habitation, vehicle…” section of the statute you referenced.
Proving intent to entrap the vandals would be difficult, should somebody decide to nap in their vehicle. But I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV, so I’m just throwing this out there to see if an actual lawyer might comment on it, just as a hypothetical. Personally if I were in this situation I’d just move.
“Y’all really, truly think that people are going to start worrying about the law, when the law has ceased to care about them?”
Yes and no. The “law” has not stopped caring about anybody. Under the Soros regime, it is selectively enforced. Garza and the other’s who run Austin are happy to turn a blind eye to homeless people stealing whatever they can get away with. If you try to do something about it, they will come down on you with every penalty on the books.
This is the state of anarcho-tyranny. License for those the left supports, hard penalties for those it does not. Ask Daniel Perry, the McMichaels, among others.
Vigilante tactics on the part of those subject to tyranny may well be coming. The express elevator to hell is moving briskly.
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