Safety and security don’t just happen. They are the result of collective consensus and public investment.”
SafeHorns, an organization dedicated to ensuring the safety of UT students, features this Nelson Mandela quote on their website. The group was founded in 2016 in the aftermath of Haruka Weiser’s on-campus murder. Her killer, a teen who had recently run away from home, instantly sparked discussions linking student safety to Austin’s homeless population.
“As a mom, I wanted to pull my teen children closer, figure out a way to keep them safe,” UT graduate Amy Price said in an email. She now serves as Director of Development and Communications at the Austin Resource Center for the Homeless.
“As a nonprofit professional, I watched the news to see how the coverage of the suspect/killer would be handled,” Price said.
When the media labeled him a homeless youth instead of a disturbed individual, Price remembers thinking “runaway” would have been a more accurate description. By making homelessness the murderer’s defining quality, media outlets implicated the homeless community as a whole.