Austin Police Seek Suspect Accused Of Assaulting Elderly Man

EAST AUSTIN, TEXAS — Police are seeking assistance from the public in locating a second suspect accused of injury to an elderly person in early November.

In a press advisory on Friday, police said several members of a self-described activist group calling itself "Defend our Hoodz" were protesting an art exhibit along the 1600 block of South Pleasant Valley Road at around 11:51 a.m. The victim, a 68-year-old man, had exited the exhibition room when members of the group surrounded him on the sidewalk.

The first suspect, Benjamin Paul-Jordan Weir, was arrested at the scene for assaulting the elderly man, police said. After reviewing video taken at the scene (see below), it appears a second suspect also was involved in the assault, police noted.

Benjamin Paul-Jordan Weir booking photo via Austin Police Department

Police released still images of that second suspect (see top images) in the hopes someone might recognize him and alert them as to his identity and/or whereabouts.

Anyone recognizing the second suspect is asked to call Crime Stoppers or the APD Child Abuse Unit at 512-974-6880. Those with information also can submit tips by downloading APD’s mobile app, Austin PD, for free on iPhone and Android.

Under the guise of protesting gentrification, the group "Defend Our Hoodz" (Defendiendo el Barrio), often protest outside businesses they view as incursions into established neighborhoods. In so doing, members — often obscuring their faces with bandannas to conceal their identities —scream epithets at not only representatives of those businesses but at police safeguarding the scene, as Patch has witnessed multiple times.

A favorite target of the group is the "Blue Cat Café," an eatery along Cesar Chavez Street filled with adoptable cats mingling with customers that opened up near the site of where the Jumpolin piñata store once stood at 1401 E. Cesar Chavez before the party supplies store's 2015 razing by unsavory property owners. The then-new owners of the land where the small piñata store owned by Mexican natives once stood was unexpectedly bulldozed by the property owners who hoped to capitalize on the imminent SXSW crowds by staging a party at the site.

Since then, members of "Defend Our Hoodz" have taken it as their mission to protest the presence of the business at the site — directing their ire not at the property owners who directed the bulldozing, but at the new tenant — screaming at the cafe's owner as they gather on the public sidewalk fronting the business, while also directing choice slurs to customers and police officers guarding the scene for good measure.

Through quieter community efforts, the Jumpolin store has since reopened in a larger site at 2605 E. Cesar Chavez — less than mile from the original location at 1401 E. Cesar Chavez that was destroyed, as Patch reported at the time.

The recent incident involving the elderly victim isn't the first time a Defend Our Hoodz demonstration has turned violent. In June 2017, police were forced to deploy a stun gun during an arrest of a protester outside the Blue Cat Café — unleashing a flurry of insults at officers at the scene, as the Austin American-Statesman reported at the time. Two protesters were charged with aggravated assault and evading arrest during the melee.

The group objects not only to real estate incursion into East Austin neighborhoods, but art retrospectives it views as cultural appropriation. In a recent Facebook post, the group alerted to its boycott of efforts by the Riverside Arts District the group's members reduced to "...nothing more than another art washing scheme trying to mask working-class displacement as a cultural project."

Moreover, members added, the target of their boycott "...has been directly quoted as saying they are 'in bed with developers,' " although they don't identify the person involved with the arts group alleged to have made such an acknowledgment.

Many share the anxiety over the sweeping commercial changes taking place in East Austin by the forces of gentrification. But the form of protest adopted by "Defend Our Hoodz" is decidedly confrontational and its demonstrations invariably tension-filled.

One of the group's newest targets is Susan Almanza, a longtime community activist also vocal against gentrification that "Defend Our Hoodz" has targeted for her more nuanced approach to mitigating the development trend they view as too acquiescent to developers.

Almanza, currently in a runoff for the District 3 Austin City Council seat, earlier this year was shouted down at a community meeting with developers wanting to construct in East Austin asking for public input. A video at the time showed members of "Defend Our Hoodz" in the audience booing and drowning her out with shouts of "¡vendida!," the Spanish word for sell-out.

"We've partnered with Serve the People ATX & @RSF_Austin to write a joint statement against organizers like Susana Almanza that sell out our hoods to developers," Defend Our Hoodz members wrote on Twitter. "The working class must forge a new path on our own terms, where we call the shots & the developers beg us for mercy."

Almanza is the director of an East Austin-focused environmental and social-justice nonprofit called PODER — People Organized in Defense of Earth and her Resources — and is a frequent visitor to City Council meetings. She has long fought against gentrification while calling for neighborhood preservation and development, including demanding the city open the Montopolis community swimming pool and pay lifeguards a better wage.

She's running for the District 3 city council seat occupied by her brother, Sabino "Pio" Renteria, who secured the seat in 2014 despite her challenge. Early voting in the runoff election began on Nov. 29 and ended on Dec. 7 ahead of the Dec. 11 election.

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>>> Photos of unidentified suspect courtesy of Austin Police Department