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.
The Austin Signal is a production
of KUT News, hosted by
Jerry Quijano.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
Did she try to get the information
from her employers there at Tesla?
She did, yes.
And they, her attorney says
they, they stonewalled her
basically. So that's why they filed
this lawsuit.
Okay, was law
enforcement involved at that time at
all?
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.
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?
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.
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?
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?
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.
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.
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.
Nice to see you, sir.
Thank you for coming back.
But Friday night, he wanted to thank
people for showing up to Buford's
the first day it was back open.
Hi Sergio, how are you?
Thank you for coming down, okay?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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,
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.
Ishar Tal is having a beer inside.
He's from Israel.
And he says he's seen many shootings
in his hometown.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Is that the case for all the K-U-T-X
events as well?
Yeah, you don't need to.
As well okay yeah you don't need any sort of
credentials and then um
just the ten dollars for the schultz
garden that's uh... Because that's
going to the central texas yeah
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.
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.
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.
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.