Creating a safer 6th Street: How another US city transformed its entertainment district

It seemed like another fall weekend night downtown. By midnight, thousands had gathered on Austin’s Sixth Street, with the Austin City Limits crowd from Zilker Park mixing themselves in. Then, things took a turn. “We got one with one gunshot wound at Sixth and Sabine,” said Sgt. Al Garibay, who works on the Austin Police Department’s Downtown Area Command, or DTAC. He and other officers started running east, with KXAN investigators right behind. Just three blocks from the heart of the Entertainment District, a gun battle between two groups had taken place. A 17-year old was in critical condition, and he’d later die at the hospital. The gun battle prompted an officer to fire his own weapon, but police have not said whether the teen was shot by that officer or someone else. Violent crime is on the rise here in the Sixth Street Entertainment District, located between 5th and 7th streets and stretching from Brazos Street to the west and Interstate 35 to the east.

Using APD’s crime maps tool, we found there have been six homicides in the district this year, compared with one each of the previous two years, and none in 2018. The 51 aggravated assaults police have reported in the district in 2021 represent a 59% increase from 2018. The numbers are current through the last week of October. In a recent affidavit, one officer even called it a “high crime area,” noting “numerous shootings, robberies, assaults, murders, as well as other firearm investigations.” “The encounters escalating in violence are certainly concerning,” said District 9 Council Member Kathie Tovo, who represents Downtown and West Campus. Tovo sponsored the “Safer Sixth Street Initiative,” which passed in June following a mass shooting there that killed a man and wounded 13 others. The resolution asks the city to take action in making Sixth Street safer and more welcoming. That could mean adding more lighting, changing the entertainment district’s layout or collaborating with bar and venue owners on types of safety training. “We can always increase and improve the communication and partnerships,” said Brian Block, who works for the city and is lead coordinator for the initiative. “That’s really what we’re after, in making it more formal, adding formal training, adding formal meetings where we can enhance that dialogue.”