Officials knew of threat to a judge
Sources: Clues probed weeks before attack on Kocurek, but info thin.
Several weeks before a shooter attacked state District Judge Julie Kocurek, authorities became aware of a nonspecific threat against an unnamed judge, but their investigation was limited by a lack of additional information, the American-Statesman learned Wednesday.
Two investigators from the Travis County district attorney’s office — both distinguished retired Austin police investigators — attempted to trace the origin of what few clues they had and gave the evidence they uncovered to security officers who protect the Blackwell-Thurman Criminal Justice Complex, sources said.
Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg declined Wednesday to discuss the threat because it is
part of the ongoing investigation into the Kocurek shooting.
“We have a protocol for that, and we do a threat assessment and we follow that every time,” Lehmberg said.
The revelation came on a day in which another threat to
the criminal justice community came to light.
Sources told the Statesman that authorities are looking into a threat to the judge, prosecutors and jurors in the high-profile trial of Rashad Owens.
Owens was convicted last week of killing four people in last year’s deadly South by Southwest Music Festival crash and was sentenced to life in prison.
Officials learned of what they deemed a troubling Facebook post that was made soon after the trial came to an end last week and said it was serious enough to prompt them to provide some additional security for potential targets.
No one has been charged in connection with the post.
Law enforcement officials said the matter remains under investigation.
State District Judge Cliff Brown presided over the Owens case, which was prosecuted by Assistant District Attorneys Amy Meredith and Mark Chavez.
Officials said that type of threat ordinarily wouldn’t raise the intensity of alarms that it has this week because of Friday night’s attack against Kocurek, highlighting the fear and tension currently within Travis County’s criminal justice and law enforcement community.
State District Judge Scott Jenkins said courts are often the scenes of high drama.
In his 53rd District Court, where Child Protective Services cases are heard, tensions often run high but feel particularly intense since Kocurek was attacked.
Jenkins said deputies have been on a higher state of alert and judges have been “distressed.”
“We are on edge, and everyone is shaken,” Jenkins said.
Kocurek is still recovering from the attack, which sources have said happened as she was returning home Friday night from a high school football game.
She was waiting for the driver of her vehicle to remove a bag of trash or a garbage can that was blocking a driveway gate when the shooter approached and opened fire, the sources said.
Chimene Onyeri, a person of interest in the investigation into the shooting, made his first appearance in a Houston courtroom Wednesday for an unrelated murder charge.
Onyeri, 28, stood in an orange jumpsuit as court officials informed him of his rights and gave some details about the May shooting of a man Onyeri is accused of killing.
A court clerk said Onyeri had bragged to someone about killing 31-year-old Jacobi Demon Alexander in a Houston apartment complex courtyard.
A witness said he saw Onyeri shoot Alexander four times in the abdomen, stand over him and shoot Alexander four more times in the head, the clerk said.
An altercation involving Onyeri’s father and Alexander might have preceded the killing. The clerk said Alexander punched Onyeri’s father, Innocent Onyeri, in the face during an argument after a car collision close to where that shooting later occurred.
Onyeri’s father required medical treatment for broken bones after the altercation, the clerk said.
On Tuesday, Innocent Onyeri sought to distance his son from the attack on Kocurek, telling Houston TV station KHOU that his son was with him at his Houston home when Kocurek was attacked outside her West Austin home.
Chimene Onyeri is being held without bail. He remained in the Harris County Jail on Wednesday.
His cousin Kismet Onyeri spoke with the Statesman but refused to discuss the case.
“He’s a good person,” she said.
Other family members, including Innocent Onyeri, didn’t return phone messages Wednesday.