This vehicle was vandalized in the early hours of Jan. 1 in Steiner Ranch near Wag-A-Bag.
By LYNETTE HAALAND, Four Points News
Recent Travis County Sheriff’s Office and Austin Police Department reports in the Four Points area include two cases where three teenage boys were responsible for pranks that went too far, according to the assault victim.
One resulted in an assault with injury case that happened around 4 a.m. on Jan. 1 in the 3100 block of Country Lake. The other was a case of criminal mischief where a vehicle was vandalized near Wag-A-Bag in the 2900 block of Quinlan Park Road that same morning.
“The case is open and according to the detective, he has strong suspect leads he’s following. No arrests have been made,” said Kristen Dark, TCSO spokesperson, on Thursday.
Dark said the sheriff’s office investigation was pointing to an isolated incident but the homeowner of the assault case did some investigation of her own and found through a grabbed Snapchat video that the alleged three teens from her case were also part of a vandalism crime where a rock was thrown at a vehicle near Wag-A-Bag.
“They were three high school kids. This moved from a prank to an assault with a fire extinguisher,” said the homeowner at the Country Lake incident. She did not want to be identified.
She knew it was kids banging on the window multiple times around 3:45 a.m. on New Year’s. She couldn’t sleep so she got up, opened the front door and said in a loud voice, “Get off my property.”
That’s when three teenage boys “jumped from out of the bushes, four or five feet from my face,” she said, and sprayed her with a fire extinguisher. “Chemical spray in my eyes and throat, not to mention covering my entire body, and then as I dashed back into the house, the powder ended up on our first floor.”
“This is beyond toilet papering a house. These guys need to be caught,” she said.
After many hours of clean up, filing the case with the sheriff’s office, and scouring social media leads, a video surfaced that was grabbed from Snapchat and some young men were identified.
The video showed two guys in car and another guy with a rock, she said. A rock was thrown at the car at Wag-A-Bag and busted the windshield. The same three boys were also identified in the homeowner’s cul de sac that night, she said. She gave all of the names to TCSO and the video.
The boy who sprayed the fire extinguisher ended up going to the homeowner’s house on Thursday and apologized to her with his parents by his side. The homeowner was thankful for this confession.
“The end result is that I want these kids to stop doing stupid things,” she said. “Stop being little hoodlums.”