Austin Justice

In an interview tonight, Garza praised himself for overseeing a decline in violence. In fact: Violent crime has skyrocketed under Garza and has stayed far above the national trends. Austin is not even close to keeping pace with national trends and is nowhere close to pre-pandemic, even as the country has recovered.

UPDATE: After our reporting on the Frank Bonner release gained traction on 𝕏, CBS Austin picked up the story and got a statement from DA José Garza's office. Garza says they reviewed the evidence, found it "not enough to proceed," and are still working with the detective, even though they rejected the homicide charge without prejudice. Garza didn't deny the accuracy of our reporting: the Nest camera footage of Bonner bagging bloody clothes and saying "homicide will be in this hoe" six minutes after Kelly was shot. The tipster who told police the woman was killed over a drug debt and led them straight to Bonner. The surveillance video of the killing. Garza also didn't explain why Bonner's pending aggravated assault case was dropped. Or the years of dropped prior cases -- aggravated robberies, drug felonies, gun charges -- that kept a violent repeat offender on the street long enough to come home in bloody clothes and instruct a woman to lie to police and mop up the evidence. Kelly Meazell's sister told CBS she wants her sister's killer behind bars so he can't do this to someone else. But Bonner is free, and back on the street.

UPDATE: Why did DA José Garza's office just let Frank Bonner walk on the murder of homeless woman Kelly Meazell? Here's what prosecutors got from police: - Kelly was shot in the neck at close range, with signs of being robbed after. - A nearby security camera caught a man running after Kelly, then jumping into a car and speeding off. - A tipster told police what happened: Bonner killed Kelly because she owed him drug money, then came home that night in bloody clothes, bagged them up, and took off. - Two days later, police got a 911 call from Bonner's apartment because a woman was being held at gunpoint. He ran before officers arrived. - Police searched the apartment and found a Nest camera in his living room recording the night Kelly was killed. Six minutes after the shooting, Bonner walks in, strips off his bloody clothes, and stuffs them into a kitchen trash bag. He tells the woman with him to power off her phone then washes his hands. He tells her to mop the floor, and then says, on his own camera, out loud: "Homicide will be in this hoe, right." Then he tells her to misdirect police about his timing and whereabouts. Garza's office reviewed all of this and rejected the murder charge two weeks ago -- after years of dropping Bonner's prior cases for aggravated robbery, drug felonies, evading arrest, tampering with evidence, contraband in jail, and felon-with-firearm. Bonner's pending aggravated assault case was also dismissed in the meantime. This was a separate shooting where he put three bullets in a man's leg over a crack baggie. The reason given was that the victim wouldn't testify. But prosecutors don't need a cooperative victim to pursue a man who shot someone in broad daylight -- not with shell casings, surveillance, 911 audio, medical records, and a record a mile long. They chose not to fight that one either. So after a trail of victims, including a dead homeless woman, Frank Bonner is back on Austin's streets.

NEW: I asked DA José Garza about the accusations against his office, including that his office is contributing to allowing violent offenders to walk free. Garza: "The fact of the matter is that decisions about who is released are decisions made by judges." (1/2)

AUSTIN WOMAN's dogs maul a woman walking down a sidewalk. The victim didn't think she'd survive, and her arm is so badly torn she'll need plastic surgery. Panvrla White was charged in March with a felony, her Cane Corsos were euthanized, and she posted bond with orders not to possess any pets. Then things got worse. Travis County prosecutors quietly dismissed two of her unrelated felonies (burglary and criminal mischief) through pre-trial diversion. Days later, White started threatening shelter staff, got banned from the property, and kept coming back. When officers arrested her last month, they found meth tucked in her bra. She bonded out again. A week later, she tracked down a witness from the dog case at an HEB and punched him in the face and allegedly threw a rock went through his window. Then she called a veteran's crisis line and said she had an AK-47 and was going to kill shelter staff and the officers who took her dogs. She named an animal services investigator and said, "by the end of the day there will be no more of you." White has 32 cases in Travis County, including a felony for forging docs to sell a dead lady's house, plus convictions for robbery/theft and credit card abuse. A harassment case is still pending from last year, when her OTHER dog, a Spanish Mastiff, attacked a neighbor she then spent weeks threatening.

DA José Garza admitted last year, as he did during his campaign and his entire tenure, that he opposes locking more people up, particularly people in "communities of color," for purposes of public safety. Real public safety, he says, is access to jobs, schools, and healthcare.

Homicides spiked nationwide 2020-2021. The country has recovered, and the national rate is now 31% below where it was in 2019. Not Austin. Austin's rate has declined but stayed high and is still 67% above pre-pandemic levels.