Republican
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said Tuesday that last week's seemingly random knife attacks by a homeless man at an Austin shopping plaza magnified a “sense of lawlessness" in the liberal state capital city, whose mayor has accused the governor of demonizing people living on the streets.
![Texas governor picks new fight over homeless after attack](https://media.zenfs.com/en/ap.org/9f608d20298baca5ab5bf6640a5b4151)
Since the attacks Friday, which included the fatal stabbing of a restaurant kitchen manager, Abbott has sought to draw a link to relaxed camping ordinances that have made homelessness more visible in one of the nation's fastest-growing cities.
"What Austin has done over the past half year is to perpetuate a sense of lawlessness in this city about the homeless," Abbott told reporters in the Texas Capitol.