A man who allegedly stole from a business on East Cesar Chavez Street returned ten days later and robbed the same location by assault, according to the Austin Police Department. Detectives are now asking the public for help identifying him, describing a suspect who fled on foot afterward and remains at large.
According to the Austin Police Department, the robbery happened around 2:56 p.m. on July 28 at a commercial retail space at 911 East Cesar Chavez Street. The building sits near the intersection of East Cesar Chavez and Marcos Street and has housed local retail businesses, including Swoon Salon, according to a LoopNet listing for the property. Police are tracking the case under number 26-2090810 and say the same man committed a theft at the identical address ten days earlier, on July 18, before returning to escalate the crime into a robbery by assault.
APD Detectives Search for Suspect in Connection to a Robbery by Assault - https://t.co/XjGrRAuZfO pic.twitter.com/jc5xUkA1SH
— Austin Police Department (@Austin_Police) August 14, 2026
What the Suspect Looks Like
APD describes the suspect as a Black male between 20 and 30 years old, with short black hair and an athletic build. At the time of the robbery, he was wearing gray pants, a black sleeveless shirt with a white and pink logo on the back, and red Nike Foamposite shoes, and he was carrying a gray and black backpack. Investigators say he fled the scene on foot after the assault.
Robbery by assault is charged in Texas under Penal Code § 29.02 as a second-degree felony, since the underlying theft involved actual or threatened physical force rather than simple property theft, according to Doug Murphy Law. A conviction can carry two to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000. The charge can be elevated further, to aggravated robbery under Penal Code § 29.03 — a first-degree felony punishable by five to 99 years or life in prison — if a deadly weapon is used or serious bodily injury results, though APD is currently classifying this case as robbery by assault rather than aggravated robbery.
A Corridor With a Complicated History
East Cesar Chavez Street was formally designated under a City of Austin neighborhood plan adopted in May 1999, intended to balance mixed-use commercial development with preservation along one of East Austin's main east-west arteries. The corridor has since transformed from a traditional light-industrial and local-retail strip into a heavily gentrified commercial stretch. The building at 911 East Cesar Chavez even served as a neighborhood landmark once before, chosen in November 2018 as the site of a community mural called Opt For Optimism as part of a local public art and charity campaign, according to CultureMap Austin.
This case fits into a broader pattern APD has been tracking in East Austin this summer. In July, the department's Commercial Burglary Unit alerted Eastside business owners to a series of property thefts involving suspects operating in small groups, as Hoodline reported in its earlier piece on the East Austin ATM theft search. A Downtown Austin Alliance public safety update released in June found that overall property crime in central Austin has trended downward since early 2026, even as simple assault continued to account for nearly two-thirds of reported crimes against people in central zones. Citywide, violent crime stands at roughly 610 incidents per 100,000 residents and property crime exceeds 3,800 per 100,000, according to data published by law enforcement technology vendor WCCTV in May.
How to Help Investigators
It remains unclear whether the suspect specifically targeted the business itself or an individual employee or customer, and police have not detailed exactly what property was taken in either the July 18 theft or the July 28 robbery. It is also not known whether surveillance footage from neighboring businesses along East Cesar Chavez captured his escape route on foot.
APD's Robbery Unit is asking anyone with information to call 512-974-5092. Tips can also be submitted anonymously through the Capital Area Crime Stoppers Program at 512-472-8477 or online at austincrimestoppers.org, which offers cash rewards of up to $1,000 for information leading to an arrest in APD felony investigations. Public tips have proven useful in similar cases, including a June arrest of a 25-year-old suspect in a separate robbery-by-assault investigation that Hoodline covered after a multi-week manhunt. Police remind the public that any ongoing emergency should be reported by calling 9-1-1.
