AUSTIN (KXAN) — On Tuesday, Republic Square Park in downtown Austin hosted its first “Summer Sunset Series” of the summer.
“We’re so excited to be here, it’s a beautiful day,” said Kimberly Ornelas, who worked the evening at the Goode Health tent – one of the vendors for the event.
The park is typically busy during the day, but multiple organizations have reported issues overnight related to property crime and illegal camping.
Now, though overnight vandalism and other crime is down at Republic Square, according to the Downtown Austin Alliance (DAA).
The group launched an overnight security pilot program last year to curb the problem, and found it successful enough to run full time.
“In recent years, we began to see negative activity or evidence of negative activity in the overnight hours,” said the DAA’s Bill Brice. “Evidence of people having camped out illegally in the park overnight, evidence of people breaking electrical fixtures or lighting fixtures, trying to break into the electrical facility or the food kiosk.”
The pilot program launched in October 2023. Security guards monitored the park from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.
“We saw all of that activity basically cease. All of the vandalism, camping in the park illegally overnight, all of that activity ceased immediately once we added overnight security in the park,” Brice said.
So the DAA made the decision to make this a full-time operation. However, instead of contracting with private security, the DAA trained street-level staff to operate as members of a safety team. Part of their role is conducting those overnight patrols at the park.
Austin Police: Downtown crime down over last eight months
In October the Austin Police Department (APD) launched an initiative to beef up downtown patrols. Now, Lt. Christopher Juusola, the operations lieutenant for the Downtown Area Command (DTAC), said the program has had an “immediate positive impact.”
The initiative was born from downtown stakeholder complaints primarily related to property crime and other “quality of life” issues.
“The vast majority of crimes in DTAC dropped compared to the year(s) prior,” Juusola said. “Crimes against person were slightly lower and crimes against property was significantly lower.”