Dave (@Grumpy_Hoosier)

Post by Sarah Fields aka "@ SarahisCensored" says: On the afternoon of August 30, 2026, 17-year-old Edwin Pulgar was driving down a residential stretch of Woodland Avenue in Austin when 21-year-old Santana Gonzales walked up to the moving car and shot him through the window. Pulgar crashed into a fence. He was pronounced dead at the scene eight minutes after officers arrived. Gonzales, who police say has Crips gang affiliations, fled on foot. He was arrested ten days later by U.S. Marshals and APD SWAT. The same gun and his phone location data have been linked to other shootings in July and August, including shots fired into a home after threats over an ex-girlfriend. Gonzales was already on probation when he pulled the trigger. Court records show a 2023 case that began as three counts of aggravated robbery with a firearm, plus a stolen car and evading police. Prosecutors dropped two of the robbery counts, reduced the third to simple robbery, and dismissed the rest. He received probation instead of prison. In February a trooper stop produced a fake name, a foot chase, and a loaded Glock that fell from his waistband; the gun charge was declined and the evading charge dismissed. In March a judge denied a motion to revoke that probation and left him on the street. Multiple earlier cases against him had already been dismissed. He then killed a teenager. This was the predictable result of a system that repeatedly treats a pattern of armed robbery, flight, and illegal gun possession as something that could be managed with reduced charges and continued supervision. Had Gonzales been held to account for the 2023 robberies with real prison time, or had the February gun and evading case been used to revoke his probation as the law allowed, he would not have been walking a residential street with a firearm in late August. Edwin Pulgar would still be alive. Instead, a 17-year-old died on the pavement because the people charged with enforcing the law chose leniency over consequences one time too many.