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Buford’s Backyard Beer Garden was open for business over the weekend, just days after a shooting left three people dead and more than a dozen injured. Some Austin residents felt the opening was rushed after such a tragedy. We’ll hear from others who felt showing up was the right thing to do.
The Austin Police Department has new rules for how its officers contact Immigration and Customs Enforcement. We’ll hear more about the change.
After the suspected shooter in the attack was identified, a woman from Buda is alleging she was assaulted by the suspect in a separate incident last year at the Tesla Gigafactory. We’ll dig into what we know about the incident and lawsuit.
Plus, South By Southwest starts its takeover of Austin this Thursday. Our sister station KUTX is gearing up to bring you plenty of live music — from right here in Austin and from around the world.
Austin Signal is made possible by listeners like you. You can support our work by making a donation at supportthispodcast.org
The full transcript of this episode of Austin Signal is available on the KUT & KUTX Studio website. The transcript is also available as subtitles or captions on some podcast apps.
Jerry Quijano [00:00:08] Buford’s backyard beer garden was open for business over the weekend, just days after a shooting left three people dead and more than a dozen injured. Some folks in town felt the opening was rushed after such a tragedy. We’re going to hear from some patrons who felt showing up was the right thing to do. And after the alleged shooter in that attack was identified, a woman from Buda is alleging that she was assaulted by the suspect in a separate incident last year at the Tesla Gigafactory. What we know about the incident and a lawsuit that is coming up. On today’s show.
KUT Announcer: Laurie Gallardo [00:00:39] The Austin Signal is a production of KUT News, hosted by Jerry Quijano.
Jerry Quijano [00:00:44] Plus, SXSW starts its takeover of Austin this Thursday. Our sister station, KUTX, is gearing up to bring you plenty of live music from right here in town and from around the world. That’s up next, right here on Austin Signal. Howdy out there. Thank you for tuning in. This is Austin Signal here on listener powered public radio. KUT News 90.5 on the KUT app and online at KUT.org. I’m your host Jerry Quijano. It is the ninth day of March. Thank you for making us part of your Monday. Let’s get into today’s show. We have a lot to share with you. Let us start by telling you about the Austin Police Department’s rules for how its officers contact Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The change comes after a heated community meeting last month where members of the public asked APD to refuse to work with ICE and to refuse to comply with Texas law forbidding cities from telling officers that they cannot report people to ICE. For more about these new rules, we’re speaking with KUT’s Moe’s Bouchelle, who has been following this story. Moe, thanks for joining us. Hey Jerry. So let’s start with the rules. They were published on APD’s website last week with little fanfare and there was a lot happening last week. What do these rules say?
Mose Buchele [00:02:06] So basically, the idea is that they need new guidance for officers when they encounter people in the course of doing their jobs, they do a background check, and they see that Immigrations and Customs Enforcement has flagged these people with what they call administrative warrants. They’re not criminal warrants, they’re just basically, their notice is that an ICE agent thinks this person might be in the country in an unauthorized manner. And so police officers, city officers, might encounter that in the course of their work. How they respond to that is what these rules are meant to give guidance for.
Jerry Quijano [00:02:40] Okay so what is the change is it now that it’s not just going to be up to the to the discretion of one officer how are the rules changing or or what’s the oversight being added.
Mose Buchele [00:02:48] Yeah, so that’s exactly what it is. There’s kind of added oversight. Previously, as these ICE warrants started kind of flooding the system last year, officers were often contacting ICE to tell immigration federal agents that they had these people in front of them. In some cases, the local officers would even detain or keep a person on scene while ICE agents arrive. This It didn’t happen a lot, but it did happen, and it happened most. Uh… Kind of faith famously with in the case of a woman and her daughter who were deported very early this year so the city is back and the city’s constrained in what it can say because there is state law state law says as you already pointed out that cities can’t tell officers not to call ice What the new rule does say, however, is if you are a police officer and you encounter someone with an administrative warrant and they have not committed any other chargeable offense, so they’re not going to be brought to the county jail where ICE will very likely also pick them up, you cannot detain that person on your own. You can’t make the decision on your to hold that person for ICE to come. What you got to do is call go up the chain of command call your you know, commanding officer, and there are several different stages that will go up to get authorization for an officer to detain someone to wait for ICE. The idea here is that that will not happen or will not happened very frequently because the Austin Police Department’s position has always been, we don’t have the resources to do that.
Jerry Quijano [00:04:22] And you’ve written about this in your latest story. We’re going to have a link to that in the show notes, but it’s been something that you have been covering for the last few months. And we’ve talked about the limitations that have been placed on the city and on the police department. In your story, you write that city officials are hoping to thread the needle with this decision. How so?
Mose Buchele [00:04:39] Yes so like i said you know state law says you can’t not you can tell officers not to call ice uh… And cities are really really confining what they can do but the they can still determine where to use their resources uh… You know the law appears to to allow cities to reallocate officers where they want to to to do their job of enforcing criminal law you know or or you know you know in the city and so uh… Presumably a commander might look at an officer call hey we found someone who has an administrative warrant. That commander will say, well, listen, we don’t want you to spend the man hours waiting around for maybe for ICE to show up. So you got to go and do your job somewhere else. That could decrease the number of times that an officer maybe calls ICE and certainly waits with a person for ICE to arrive to detain them.
Jerry Quijano [00:05:27] We’ve heard a lot about the relationship between law enforcement and the immigration community here in Austin and across the country. Ridley, what have you heard from immigration advocates about this new policy change from APD?
Mose Buchele [00:05:38] Yeah, I think it’s really important to point out that we’re talking about city police officers here. This is a new rule that may have a kind of impact in certain circumstances, right? But in the state of Texas, state police are doing immigration enforcement, and their advocates and immigration lawyers advise people to treat the police as though they were immigration agents in many cases. There are many, many circumstances in which… Someone may still be concerned about interacting with the police, even in light of this one change to local policy. And again, I would also stress, if someone is sent to the county jail on any kind of potential charge, ICE is also there and picking people up from the county jail. There are just many different ways in which someone may find themselves in the… Deportation process, quite frankly, after engaging with law enforcement.
Jerry Quijano [00:06:41] We’ve been speaking with Moe’s Boo Shell. He is KUT’s energy and environment correspondent and has been doing lots of immigration reporting for the Texas Newsroom. Right here with us on Austin Signal as well. Moe, thanks for coming back on the show. We appreciate you. The KUT newsroom is continuing to report on the aftermath of this month’s deadly shooting at Buford’s on West 6th Street. The bar opened up for business again late last Friday. We’re gonna have more about that coming up in a few moments. After the alleged shooter was identified, a woman who worked at Tesla identified him as the man who had attacked her last year in a separate incident on the job. Now she is suing Tesla. For more about, that we’re speaking with KUT’s government accountability reporter, Andrew Weber. Andrew, thanks for coming on the show. Yeah. Thanks for having me, Jerry. So tell us, what do we know about this lawsuit so far?
Andrew Weber [00:07:34] This lawsuit was filed last week here in Travis County by a woman named Lillian Brady. She is a 65 year old worker at the Gigafactory out in Del Valley. And she says last December, early December, she was assaulted by Ndiaga Diagne. She didn’t even know who, didn’t know his name at the time. She just encountered him at work. There was an altercation and she just figured out because his Face has been plastered all over the news and found a lawsuit.
Jerry Quijano [00:08:06] Did she try to get the information from her employers there at Tesla?
Andrew Weber [00:08:10] She did, yes. And they, her attorney says they, they stonewalled her basically. So that’s why they filed this lawsuit.
Jerry Quijano [00:08:16] Okay, was law enforcement involved at that time at all?
Andrew Weber [00:08:21] Yes. She went to Tesla basically and said, this person assaulted me. This happened early in the morning. He was allegedly was praying and she was, you know, sort of walking to her workstation, didn’t want to disturb him. Apparently did according to the lawsuit and he threw it onto the ground. And so she went to her bosses and said I would like to know the name of this employee who assaulted me and they basically said, okay, no, according to, you know, her attorney. After that, she did go to the Travis County Sheriff’s Office, and this sort of is intersectional with the whole, this man was not on law enforcement’s radar. I have questions about that because there was an investigation into this, Travis County Sheriff’s told me that it has since been closed because the suspect is dead. And so that’s where we’re at with that.
Jerry Quijano [00:09:13] You mentioned that Austin Police, we found out through press conferences last week that they had not encountered the suspect prior to the shooting at Buford. What do we know about the other interactions that he did have with law enforcement?
Andrew Weber [00:09:24] Yeah, he had some allegations in civil court in 2022 of domestic violence in Bear County. Sam at The Austin Current has been covering that. And he, according to the Department of Homeland Security, was arrested after a crash in 2022, I believe as well. That’s all that we really have. I’ve filed a records request for what the Travis County Sheriff’s knew as it relates to this incident. Um, I haven’t gotten anything back on that, but you know, they have to legally have to get back to us within 10 days.
Jerry Quijano [00:09:58] Okay yeah, you mentioned Sam Stark with the Austin Curran, we had him on the show Friday, you can find more from that interview at kut.org slash signal. Why is this lawsuit happening now?
Andrew Weber [00:10:10] That’s a good question. I spoke with Bob Hilliard, who is Ms. Brady’s attorney, and he said there is the question, this looming question of why wasn’t he on law enforcement’s radar? And this incident could have maybe put him on law-enforcement’s radar in a more sort of robust way, for lack of a better word. APD and the FBI have both said that we didn’t know this guy. But Bob Hillard, the attorney says, this all raises questions. For him because, you know, it raises the big question of could this have been prevented?
Bob Hilliard [00:10:45] It’s curious to me that a company as sophisticated as Tesla, a company that claims they can go to Mars, has no way of making sure not only that their employees remain safe, but also have no way to identify and make law enforcement aware of these type of troubling behaviors, which often do lead to an escalation. Tragically, the escalation in this case was unthinkable.
Jerry Quijano [00:11:14] All right, we have been speaking with Andrew Weber. He is KUT’s government accountability reporter. We’re gonna have a link to his reporting in today’s show notes and again at kut.org slash signal. Andrew, thank you for coming on the show. Thank you, Jerry. Well, one week after the deadly shooting outside Buford’s backyard beer garden on West 6th Street, the bar was back open to patrons. KUT’s Katy McAfee was there for its first night, welcoming people back.
Katy McAfee [00:11:47] Bob Woody doesn’t usually sit outside Buford’s on weekend nights. He’s normally busy with one of the other 20 bars he owns in downtown Austin.
Bob Woody [00:11:56] Nice to see you, sir. Thank you for coming back.
Katy McAfee [00:11:59] But Friday night, he wanted to thank people for showing up to Buford’s the first day it was back open.
Bob Woody [00:12:04] Hi Sergio, how are you? Thank you for coming down, okay?
Katy McAfee [00:12:09] Less than a week earlier, this place was in chaos. A man drove by the bar, shooting people on the patio. Then he returned on foot, continuing his rampage. Three people died, Savita Shan, Ryder Harrington, and George Peterson. More than a dozen others were injured. As of Thursday, two people are still in the hospital. Since that night, hundreds of electric candles and flower bouquets have piled up outside the bar.
Bob Woody [00:12:38] The further we get from it, the better we’ll be. The more normal we work our way towards, the faster we get there. But you got to do things to help, and you have to stand up. I mean, there is no rule book on how to do this.
Katy McAfee [00:12:53] After the shooting, Woody says his employees spent several days reflecting together. They made the decision to reopen as a team. Many staffers needed to get back to work to pay their bills.
Bob Woody [00:13:03] At a meeting this week, I said, do y’all want to reopen? They raised their hands. I had one that wasn’t ready, but she’s going to come back, just not yet. And that’s fine.
Katy McAfee [00:13:12] Before reopening, Woody says he worked with the city to get more police on the streets around the bar. And he says from now on, the city will barricade Rio Grande from 6th Street to 7th Street from 10 p.m. To 4 a.m., on Fridays and Saturdays, so first responders have easy access to the bar. Woody is also working on installing protective glass along the beer garden. One hundred percent of the sales from Friday, Saturday and Sunday will go to the victims and their families. Early Friday night, Woody said he had already raised over $10,000. Inside the bar, people were eager to get back to normal. I met Spencer Bishop and Sage Casey while they were playing a round of pool near the beer garden. For Bishop, coming to his favorite bar was uncomplicated.
Spencer Bishop [00:13:56] We heard they opened at 6, and it’s one of our favorite bars. Come here all the time, so wanted to definitely come support. 6 PM open and play some pool like we normally do, like an everyday thing.
Katy McAfee [00:14:07] Casey grew up in Boston. He says he was very near the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013. He says after the city took a beat to recover,
Sage Casey [00:14:16] Everybody showed back up on Boylston and Boston to show that, like, that’s not something that you don’t allow those things to make you afraid of going to your favorite places on earth, you know? So I feel like that’s very important for us to be here tonight to show this is our place and we’re not going to be afraid.
Katy McAfee [00:14:36] Ishar Tal is having a beer inside. He’s from Israel. And he says he’s seen many shootings in his hometown.
Ishar Tal [00:14:43] The goal of violence like that is specifically to make you fear to go out, make you afraid, make your scared, make you cave to the demands or whatever, disrupt your life. You cannot let that happen. If we stopped our life every time something like that happened, we wouldn’t have the life to live.
Katy McAfee [00:15:02] When Buford announced it was reopening, some people’s initial reactions on social media were negative. Some people were surprised the bar would ever reopen. But Dan Weinstock, a 6th Street regular, says closing permanently would only compound the tragedy. He went to Bufords on Friday to support the staff.
Dan Weinstock [00:15:20] I think it’s really important to come back and support them after such a traumatic event and not to bring it up, not to talk to them, not ask them what that night was like for them but just to be like a comforting familiar face.
Katy McAfee [00:15:31] He says being a familiar face says something important to staff, that he’s not afraid to be there with them. I’m Katy McAfee in Austin.
Jerry Quijano [00:15:41] And we have continuing coverage from the KUT newsroom and the Austin Current at KUT.org. You can find more from us on the Kut app as well. Coming up here on Austin Signal, it is right about that time where South by Southwest comes over and takes over Austin, and we’re going to talk a little bit about the music offerings that we’re gonna be providing. Thanks to our sister station KUTX, lots of great options. Come hear about them after this break. You’re listening to community-powered public radio. This is KUT News and this is Austin Signal. Welcome back, this is Austin Signal. Well, after a few days of rain in March, the forecasted weather for Austin this Thursday is sunny skies with a high right around 70. That can mean only one thing, the start of South by Southwest. For more about the happenings our sister station KUTX will have going on starting this weekend, we’re joined by Matt Riley, Program Director at KUTx, howdy Matt. Hi, Jerry. Thanks for coming on the show and. I only have you for a few minutes and you all have a lot going on, so let’s start with Schultz Garden that’s starting on Thursday. What’s happening out there?
Matt Reilly [00:17:03] Yeah. So we’re going to be there three mornings, eight to noon, and we’re going to kick things off Thursday morning and it’s four acts each day. They’re getting 30 minute sets and $10 at the door gets you in. And that money goes directly to the central Texas food bank. So we are helping out our neighbors in need and so big props to our booker, Deidre Gott, she has been busy for the last few months putting all of these showcases together. But we’ve got acts from all over the world and Austin at Schultz. So Australia, Argentina, Indonesia, England, Kansas, yeah, I mean, name it, almost, it’s there. But yeah, these are always really great showcases because they get to stretch out a little bit at 30 minutes. And this is a really great way to experience South by Southwest if you’ve never done it. You don’t want to go downtown, because this is just at Schultz Beer Garden, right here up by campus and by the Capitol, so parking’s not that big of a deal. And so if you’d like to come get breakfast with us and see some of the best acts from all over the world, this is the great way get into it.
Jerry Quijano [00:18:09] And that Schultz garden showcases a showcase sort of international flair, right? But over at the Rivian, it’s gonna be a little bit more Austin focused.
Matt Reilly [00:18:18] Yeah, so Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, we’re doing a day party at Rivian down at their showroom on South Congress, just across the bridge there. And so we’re going all Austin for this one. This one’s 100% free, open to the public. It’s from two to five each afternoon, Friday, Sunday, and Saturday. And so if you’re going to be down there anyway exploring, swing on by because we’ve got really great Austin acts lined up for you. And we thought, you know. If we’re gonna throw this big party, let’s make it Austin music experience style. Let’s really showcase our talent here in town because we’re going to have a lot of people from all over the world in that neighborhood. So we want to make sure to give them as big of a stage as possible. Once again, it’s free, bring the kids.
Jerry Quijano [00:19:02] And I saw that the Rivian is kicking off with Next of Kin. Next of Ken has been featured a few times here on Austin Signal. So our listeners are certainly familiar with that band and lots of others performing there. Speaking of focusing on Austin, tell us about Austin Sounds. Is that a new event? So this is.
Matt Reilly [00:19:19] Sort of morphed over the years. It used to be the big Auditorium Shores shows, and then now we’re partnering with the City of Austin. And it’s basically another way to showcase Austin talent, but it’s sort of genre-specific by night, and it’s happening at Lefty’s Brick Bar down there on East 6th Street. And so each night kind of has its own theme, and our very own hip-hop show, The Breaks, will be having their own night on Friday night, And that’s going to be the great. A great lineup of soul, R&B, hip-hop, and so once again, this is totally open to the public and our own DJ Shawnee will be on hand to provide music as well. So if you’re looking to really get into a lot of free things, things that might not be super crowded, I don’t think anything’s going to be that crowded, honestly. Why do you say that? Those days have kind of passed. Like the days where it’s just mobbed. I don’t think that happens. That’s certainly not happened in the last, well, since COVID. And so I think everything’s gonna be pretty accessible as long as you’re willing to ride share and to take public transportation and not worry about parking. Get down there because it’s very accessible and a lot of this stuff is free and totally up. You don’t need a badge, as we like to say, no badge, no problem.
Jerry Quijano [00:20:37] Is that the case for all the K-U-T-X events as well? Yeah, you don’t need to.
Matt Reilly [00:20:39] As well okay yeah you don’t need any sort of credentials and then um
Jerry Quijano [00:20:42] just the ten dollars for the schultz garden that’s uh… Because that’s going to the central texas yeah
Matt Reilly [00:20:46] Yeah, and then at Rivian, they’re going to be on hand collecting donations as well, so we want to have a good showing for them. And then Monday, down at the Downright Hotel, which used to be the Sheraton on 11th, that is the music hub of South by Southwest this year, because there’s no convention center, so each track has its own hub. And so the music club is at the right hotel and we’re going to have the radio day stage from noon to five on Monday, also free open to the public. It’s just there in the backyard of the hotel. And Deidre once again has booked an amazing international lineup. And so you’re going to get sounds from all over the world. And we’re going partner with some of our public radio pals from around the country on that one.
Jerry Quijano [00:21:28] Okay, we only have about 30 seconds left. Any other advice? I mean, you gave me advice a few years ago, which was just to get out and get you work. I think I was expressing that I was a little concerned about having to pay to get in or being overwhelmed and you just said, just get out there, dude. Just go have some fun.
Matt Reilly [00:21:44] Yeah, I mean, there’s so much free stuff. And all of our stuff is free or low cost. And you don’t need any kind of credentials. I don’t think it’s, again, I don’t think it’ going to be mobbed. Especially our stuff, as always, you know, we’re pretty accommodating. We always try to get as many people in as we can. And we want everybody to come party with us. So this is just, this is our version of Mardi Gras, as I like to say. All right. You know, this part is his core to Austin, so get into it.
Jerry Quijano [00:22:13] If you want to. All right, that is Matt Reilly, the program director for KUTX. You can find more information and some set times for the events we talked about today in our podcast show notes and at kutx.org. Matt, happy South By. Back at you. And to you out there, Austin Signal is doing South By Big this year. We are doing a live show this Thursday. At Schultz Garden, it’s gonna be a one-hour special. We’re gonna be talking to some people from the movies and from the music and from foods, all free. Come join us one o’clock this Thursday at Scholz Garden. We’ll have more information at kut.org. This is Austin Signal. I’m your host, Jerry Kihono. We will talk to you tomorrow.
This transcript was transcribed by AI, and lightly edited by a human. Accuracy may vary. This text may be revised in the future.
