Austin police are investigating a homicide near the area of 1050 Springdale Road, according to a message posted by the department on the morning of Wednesday, September 23. Officers have not yet released a time or location for a media briefing on the case, leaving residents in the surrounding East Austin neighborhood with more questions than answers for now.
The Austin Police Department’s announcement, posted from its official department account, was brief and pointed: “Austin Police are investigating a homicide near the area of 1050 Springdale Rd,” the Austin Police Department
said, adding that “media briefing time and place TBD.” No further details on a victim, suspect, or timeline were included in that post as of Wednesday morning.
Anyone with information relevant to an emergency is asked to call 9-1-1, per the department’s standing guidance. Beyond that instruction and the address itself, the department’s statement offered no additional information about what led investigators to classify the case as a homicide.
The Same Address Has a Violent History
The block of Springdale Road named in Wednesday’s post has been the site of violence before. In May 2020, a fatal shooting occurred at around 10:10 p.m. in the parking lot of an apartment complex at 1050 Springdale Road, just north of Airport Boulevard, according to cbsaustin.com. Police at the time located 38-year-old James Lewis Allen Jr. with obvious trauma to his body, the outlet reported, and he was pronounced dead at the scene.
Detectives investigating that 2020 shooting identified a suspect, 21-year-old Jeffrey Garner, after speaking with witnesses, the station’s report noted. Garner was later arrested in Manor and booked into the Travis County Jail in connection with the shooting, according to fox7austin.com's coverage of the arrest.
Garner's Case Went to Trial and Ended in Conviction
That earlier case worked its way through the courts over the following years. A Travis County jury convicted Garner, by then 24 years old, on June 15 for the May 2020 murder of Allen, according to a separate report from fox7austin.com. The outlet reported that the trial lasted four days from jury selection through the verdict, and that the original 911 call reporting the shooting came in around 10 p.m. on May 28, 2020.
Austin police have not released the identity of a victim, a suspect, or a timeline for the case announced Wednesday, and no briefing details had been made public as of this report.
