Austin police charge Rashad Owens with 20 counts of aggravated assault

Jordan Rudner

April 1, 2014

Austin police have filed 20 charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon against 21-year old Rashad Charjuan Owens, who is accused of driving his car into a crowd at South by Southwest, an incident which resulted in four deaths.

Though Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo said the police would charge Owens with aggravated assault immediately following the March 13 crash, those charges were not filed until Tuesday. Owens was charged with capital murder, defined in Texas as the death of two or more people, hours after the crash.

Each of the 20 aggravated assault charges carry a bond of of $100,000, in addition to Owens’ $3 million bond charge for capital murder.

Owens will appear in court on April 9.