Deputy shoots, kills man at Community First! Village
A Travis County sheriff ’s deputy shot and killed a man Wednesday night at Community First! Village in East Austin, the law enforcement agency said in a news release.
Deputies responded to an emergency call for a welfare check just after 9:30 p.m. at the nonprofit affordable housing development. They found a man who was “behaving erratically.” While deescalating the situation, deputies say the man pulled out a weapon. One deputy responded by fatally shooting the man, the release said.
Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services declared the man dead at 10:03 p.m., EMS Capt. Christa Stedman said. It is unclear how many times the man was shot and what time he was declared dead.
The sheriff’s office declined to answer questions regarding the incident and referred all queries to the Texas Rangers, who are leading the investigation. The Texas Rangers are a division of the Texas Department of Public Safety investigates law enforcement.
The DPS said no further information was available Thursday.
According to the statement, the sheriff’s office criminal investigations division and internal affairs unit will conduct parallel investigations into the incident. The deputy who shot the man has been placed on administrative assignment, pending the investigation.
The shooting comes less than two weeks after the fatal shooting of a 61year-old resident of Community First! Village by his 19-year-old son, who is currently facing a murder charge.
The 350-acre affordable housing development provides homes to about 400 formerly homeless people and is owned by Mobile Loaves & Fishes, an shootings involving ministry, county records show. It offers a range of on-site services, including health care; mental and behavioral health services; and job and income opportunities.
In a media briefing Thursday afternoon, Alan Graham, founder and CEO of Mobile Loaves & Fishes, said the two shootings were not connected. He pointed out that the man who was killed Wednesday was allowed to carry a weapon under Texas law.
The previous killing was the “result of a domestic dispute between a father and their son,” Graham said, “and I’m not sure that that’s an event that could ever be managed by anybody in any neighborhood in Austin, Texas, and is probably the most common tragic (event) that we encounter in our beautithat ful city, in any beautiful city.
“What happened last night was a simple wellness check on somebody that was in the middle of a crisis, and we are not going to know the full impact of that until Travis County and the Texas Rangers fully investigate. So we don’t see those as being connected or together.” Graham said he did not know how long the man who died Wednesday had been living in the community.
He added that the community values safety and has about 450 full-time security officers. He said the Community First model “remains one of the most powerful tools” to mitigate homelessness in Central Texas.
Graham said he and his wife, Tricia, have lived in the Community First for seven years “and wholeheartedly believe that it is the best neighborhood we have ever lived in.” Speaking about Wednesday’s death, Graham became visibly emotional and said a death in the neighborhood was “like losing a family member.”
“We know our neighbors, and they know us,” Graham said. “We are a family — a forged family — and we care deeply for each other.”
The shooting comes less than two weeks after the fatal shooting of a 61-year-old resident of Community First! Village by his 19-year-old son, who is currently facing a murder charge.