AUSTIN MAN told a UT student he'd kill her if she dated black men, punched a woman's SUV hard enough to leave a foot-wide dent while she sat inside, and threw rocks and bricks at parked cars -- all in the last five months. His longest sentence in 15 cases across two years was 100 days. At Central Market, a witness said Russell Hardin threatened a child for the kid's sweatshirt and threatened to stab a man over a jacket. He was charged only with running from police. Prosecutors dismissed it. He elbowed through a treatment center's front window and shoved a stone flower pot down the back steps. Also dismissed. He was indicted for burglary, released on a personal bond, and skipped court. The felony was punished as a misdemeanor and that’s the one he only got 100 days for. He took a four-pack of Sutter Home from Target and drank it. Charged as a felony because of his prior thefts. A grand jury declined to indict. In April, police say he threw a wooden plank through a Ford Explorer's back window, a day after being arrested for throwing bottles and pipes at cars. Got 30 days. After the threat against the UT student, his bond went from $10,000 to $1 and the case was dismissed. A week later came the SUV punch, followed by a punch to a man's Hummer. Bond cut to $1 with prosecutors' agreement. 20 days in jail, time served. In July, another theft. Filed as a felony, prosecutors knocked it down to a misdemeanor. In August, he scrawled "RELFECTION TIME BRO!" on a rock at a food truck lot. Prosecutors dismissed it. Days later, he slammed a computer monitor face down in an apartment lobby. 20 days for that. On September 28, he threw rocks and bricks at parked cars, cracked a windshield, and hurled racial slurs at a construction worker. Officers found him shirtless and drunk a block away. He's now charged with felony harassment of a public servant. Courts have ordered mental health evaluations again and again. Needless to say, none of it has kept him off the street.

The defund the police movement in Austin had the effect of forcing taxpayers to spend a lot more for less policing. Through early September, APD spent $38 million on overtime, or $11 million over budget. Last year the city admitted it was taking the salary money from empty police positions ($31 million) and using it to pay overtime instead. Austin has essentially turned unfilled jobs into a funding source and just getting fewer cops on the street for the money. APD currently has a 16% vacancy rate. In some parts of the city it's far worse. In a patrol sector in southeast Austin, a third of the patrol jobs are empty. Downtown, more than a quarter are empty (in case you didn't notice). So the same officers keep working longer shifts to cover the gaps. That's expensive, and it's how departments burn people out and lose the people they do have. Meanwhile, the City Council keeps finding money for other things: art classes, $7 mil in immigration legal service, random $75,000 consultant contracts that haven't been evaluated. Somehow the money never gets to hiring enough cops.

AUSTIN MAN choked his ex-girlfriend until she wet herself. This was two years after biting another woman's fingers, and a year after impersonating a state trooper to get around a protective order involving his ex. Travis County prosecutors keep letting him walk to abuse more women. "You think I'm trying to kill you, like this," Kool Jackson told his ex girlfriend right before he grabbed her throat, according to a police report. He let go when he saw she'd urinated on herself. Then he went back to her apartment and refused to leave. The next evening, she tried to walk out. He stood in front of the door, took her phone and keys, and shoved her back. She begged to be allowed to shower off the urine from the night before. He followed her into the bathroom and sat on the toilet while she crouched in the shower, pleading with him. Her brother was outside the door the whole time, recording on his phone. When officers came, they found burst blood vessels in her eye. Prosecutors had seen this man before. Many times. In 2024, he bit an ex-girlfriend's fingers until the skin split and bled, pinned her to a couch, squeezed her ankle until it bruised, and drove off in her car. A few hours later he was back, pounding on her door: "All right, I'm bringing a gun," he warned her. He was charged with robbery that same day. DA Jose Garza's office knocked it down to a misdemeanor. The assault got 30 days. In 2025, the ex-girlfriend got a protective order against him. So he texted her pretending to be a Texas DPS officer named “Walter Dean.” The fake trooper told her the order had expired, the court was dropping the case, and she should go ahead and call Kool Jackson. She had the sense of looking up the number on Cash App, and saw that it was in his name. That August, a campus cop found him camped in an Austin Community College restroom for over half an hour. Told to leave, he said nothing would happen if he came back. He came back, over and over. When the officer moved to arrest him, he dropped his backpack and squared up. The officer pepper sprayed him. He ran, hid on a stranger's apartment patio, and when ordered out at gunpoint, faked surrender and bolted again across Airport Blvd. Two weeks later he was back at ACC. In December, staff at an apartment complex called police on him again. Officers found him sitting in a dark service hallway. When they opened the door, he reached into his waistband and kept reaching after they told him to stop. In the back of the squad car, he made his intentions about the man who called 911 clear: he was going to "get him," and "he won't be able to call the police this time." On May 18, County Attorney Delia Garza's office closed out seven of his cases in a single morning. The ACC trespass, dismissed. The second ACC trespass, dismissed. Both resisting arrest charges, dismissed. The other three wrapped with no new jail time ordered. Ten weeks later, he had a woman pinned to the ground by her throat. After he bonded out on that charge, a judge loosened his GPS curfew twice and signed off on a trip to Mississippi. The DA's office didn't object. Police now say that by then he'd already violated a protective order again -- his second in 12 months, which makes it a felony. But no doubt Kool Jackson has enough experience with the DA to know he ought not worry.