Crime & Justice

The City of Austin hired a third-party investigator to look into allegations of racism against former Austin Police Assistant Chief Justin Newsom, who abruptly retired from the department last week after 23 years with APD.

As Rodney Reed’s lawyers scramble to get the 21-year-old case reexamined before his Nov. 20 execution date, a new witness has stepped forward accusing a former police officer of the murder of Stacey Stites.

An independent review of how Austin police investigate sexual assault cases won't be completed until February 2022, the Austin Public Safety Commission said. 

Updated at 9:26 p.m. ET

Amber Guyger, a former Dallas police officer who killed her unarmed black neighbor after stepping into his apartment and mistaking it for her own, has been sentenced to 10 years in state prison by the same jury that convicted her of murder.

"Your sentence will begin today," Judge Tammy Kemp told Guyger.

Eighty-one percent of Latino voters in Texas are concerned about racism-motivated gun violence and that the Latino community might be targeted again in attacks similar to the mass shooting in El Paso, according to a survey sponsored by the gun control group Giffords and the progressive group Latino Victory Project.

A Dallas police officer testified Friday that after entering what she thought was her apartment last year, she shot the silhouetted figure inside because he was advancing on her in the dark and she feared for her life.

As Rodney Reed's execution date fast approaches, more than 70 people packed into a community center in Bastrop on Saturday to apply pressure on state officials to reconsider his case.

Bob Klett, San Marcos’ new interim police chief, said the department “stands behind its citizens," after concerns over how often police arrest people for offenses where they could issue citations instead.

Officials in Texas on Wednesday released the grand jury indictment filed last week against a man accused of killing 22 people at an El Paso Walmart last month.

FORT WORTH — When Crystal Mason got out of federal prison, she said, she “got out running.”

By Nov. 8, 2016, when she’d been out for months but was still on supervised release, she was working full-time at Santander Bank in downtown Dallas and enrolled in night classes at Ogle Beauty School, trying, she said, to show her children that a “bump in the road doesn’t determine your future.”

A lawsuit filed in federal court in Austin on Wednesday claims  Travis County District Attorney Margaret Moore and an employee in her office lied to the public about a sexual assault victim.

The founder of a Texas company that sells plans for making untraceable 3D printed guns has been sentenced to seven years of probation for having sex with an underage girl.

The University of Texas says it has developed the first-ever guide to help police departments and communities notify victims about results of their sexual assault kits.

The gunman in a West Texas rampage that left seven dead obtained his AR-style rifle through a private sale, allowing him to evade a federal background check that blocked him from getting a gun in 2014 due to a “mental health issue,” a law enforcement official told The Associated Press.

After the second Texas mass shooting in a month, Gov. Greg Abbott tweeted Monday night that "we're working on a legislative package right now" and that "expedited executions for mass murderers would be a nice addition."

At a press conference Sunday in Odessa, Texas, FBI Special Agent in Charge Christopher Combs said that the nation is now averaging an active shooter incident “every other week,” a broad term used by the FBI to describe someone “attempting to kill people in a populated area.”

Not all of these incidents escalate to the level of a mass shooting.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott tweeted Monday that the gunman in Saturday's mass shooting in Midland and Odessa had previously failed a gun purchase background check and did not go through a background check to buy the gun used Saturday.

Texas lawmakers added more than $75 million to the budget in the last legislative session for sexual assault-related initiatives. 

In the aftermath of the shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, public debate once again turned to what Congress should do to reduce gun violence.

A former Houston police officer has been charged with felony murder in connection with a deadly January drug raid that killed a couple and injured several officers, prosecutors announced Friday.

A 23-year-old man arrested last week in Pease Park with several weapons, including an AR-15-type rifle, should not have been allowed to buy the weapon, according to the gun store owner.  

For decades, a staunch claim of innocence and doubts over forensic science engulfed the death penalty case of Larry Swearingen. On Wednesday, he was executed in Texas' death chamber.

Williamson County Commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday to end an arrangement with the cable show "Live PD” after the District Attorney's Office requested raw video from the show be kept as evidence. The series follows law enforcement agencies in various locations around the county.

Austin had the highest number of rapes reported in large Texas cities in 2017. The rate of reported rapes that year was also nearly 40% higher than U.S. cities of similar size. 

The Travis County District Attorney says law enforcement responded to more than 600 adult sexual assault allegations that year. Only one person was found guilty by a jury. 

And that case wasn't from Austin. 

Part II in a four-part series on why sexual assault cases are so hard to prosecute in Austin.

Warning: This story contains descriptions of sexual assault.

Sexual assault is a crime that can happen to anyone, but women are twice as likely to be victimized in Texas. In a 2015 study, UT Austin’s Institute on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault found 1 in 5 men will experience some form of sexual violence in their lifetime. But for women, it's 2 in 5.

Part I in a four-part series on why sexual assault cases are so hard to prosecute in Austin.

Warning: This story contains a graphic description of sexual assault.

When I first met with Marina Garrett, she was preparing to graduate from UT Austin. Like most seniors, she said she was nervous but excited. It was an especially significant moment for Garrett because, for a long time, she didn’t think it would happen.

Part III in a four-part series on why sexual assault cases are so hard to prosecute in Austin.

Warning: This story contains descriptions of sexual assault.

Only 5 out of 1,000 rapists will go to prison in the U.S., according to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network. The numbers aren’t much better when zoomed in locally.

Part IV in a four-part series on why sexual assault cases are so hard to prosecute in Austin.

At an Austin City Council meeting in January, a large number of people had signed up to give public testimony on the last item on the agenda. Most were women; each wore a yellow bandana – a sign of solidarity for sexual assault survivors.

Marina Garrett was one of them.