AUSTIN — An Austin City Limits Festival contractor was arrested right outside the festival grounds and KVUE has the exclusive arrest video.
40-year-old Anthony Ortega was arrested Friday for failing to register as a sex offender. Ortega was previously convicted for indecency with a child by contact prior to his arrest.
Ortega was employed with W3 Event Specialists, the security company hired by ACL.
According to W3’s president Bryan Montgomery, Ortega was working as a contracted employee doing traffic control and was therefore not subject to security licensing requirements. Ortega has since been fired.
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Employees working security with W3 at ACL, under Texas security licensing requirements, cannot be indicted or charged with felonies, Class A or Class B misdemeanors, and cannot be registered as sex offenders in any state.
Austin Police Chief Brian Manley also spoke to KVUE about event security. Austin police officers work overtime with W3 on festival grounds, in addition to officers working regular duty for the city.
Every year, Manley said they review their security procedures for one of the biggest events in Austin. An estimated 75,000 people attend each ACL Festival weekend.
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APD also took extra security precautions after the 2017 mass shooting at the country music festival in Las Vegas last year.
"Last year hosting ACL the week after the tragedy that took place in Las Vegas we took that week to really sit down and look at our plans to make sure we were comfortable with what we had in place for last year. We actually made some changes based on that review,” said Manley.
He also wants to remind people attending the festival to be diligent about their surroundings and report any suspicious activity.