Downtown Austin: Second confirmed random punching in week's time
It's the second confirmed random punching in a week's time. This time it happened Wednesday morning at 9th and Congress.
Austin Police confirm a woman waiting for the bus was randomly punched by a man. Police say the woman was not taken to the hospital.
More details on who the man is and what he was charged with are on the way later in the week.
Police say they believe he is transient.
APD sent us statistics on homeless crime in Austin over the last few years where one or more homeless people are arrested or suspected in the incident.
The numbers are in the thousands -- but they actually appear to be on the decline.
2013: 7,989
2014: 7,941
2015 (as of November 11): 6,391
As far as the random punching part goes, last Thursday, a FOX 7 photographer was sucker punched from behind on the sidewalk by 22-year-old Brady William Cassidy.
Corporal Angel Polansky told FOX 7 last week Cassidy may have been responsible for at least one other "punch and run" as well.
"We have made an arrest in a couple of cases. The others are just assault complaints at this point," she said last Friday.
After punching our photographer, another FOX 7 employee followed him down the street with her cell phone camera rolling.
Apparently Cassidy walked over to 9th street and nearly attacked a woman just walking down the sidewalk.
The woman screamed for help.
Eventually Cassidy walked over to the Omni Hotel where he asked to use someone's phone. That's when APD showed up and arrested him.
Corporal Polansky gave a word of caution to people spending time in downtown Austin .
"Keep your heads out of your cell phones. That's a big one. People aren't paying attention to what's around them because they're looking at their cell phone," she said. "Just always be aware. People just stop paying attention...we're all guilty of it."
The man who punched our photographer is still in the Travis County Jail with a $10,000 bond. He's charged with assault causing bodily injury.