Early Sunday two separate shootings occurred in Austin’s Sixth Street district, resulting in the death of a woman in her 20s. The first event occurred at 2:17 a.m. as the police received reports of gunfire.

Besides the fatally wounded victim, there were three other women that were injured and taken to the University Medical Center Brackenridge. An additional male victim refused to undergo treatment. According to Austin Police Department, a man pulled out a gun on Sixth Street and started shooting towards the crowd. There is no information regarding the shooter’s connection to the victims.

Both Austin shootings left a total of 1 person dead and five injured others. The shooting is the latest of a deadly streak of gun battles taken in the streets of many cities around the United States in the last few months. Image Credit: The Telegraph
Both Austin shootings left a total of 1 person dead and five injured others. The shooting is the latest of a deadly streak of gun battles taken in the streets of many cities around the United States in the last few months. Image Credit: The Telegraph

“As officers arrived, as you can imagine, with this being shortly after 2 a.m., and the large crowds we have on Sixth Street at this time and all the individuals leaving the bars. It was a very chaotic scene,” stated Austin Police Chief of Staff Brian Manley.

The second incident occurred at 2:24 a.m. as police received a report of a subject being assaulted in a parking garage. One individual pulled out a gun and fired at the victim, to which then nearby civilians engaged the shooter and disarmed him. The shooter was taken to a nearby hospital to attend the injuries he had received when he was taken down. There were no further injuries reported in this case.

At first, police believed that an active shooter was responsible for the events but later came to the conclusion that they were in fact isolated.

After interviewing the witnesses, it appears that the first shooter was a light-skinned black male or a Hispanic male in their 20s, but the descriptions vary as the investigation develops.

Resorting to social media

Chief Manley commented that he was certain that many witnesses had captured either the incident or its aftermath on their cellphones, so the Austin Police Dept. should look forward into acquiring said footage. He stated that anyone with footage concerning the shooting should send it to police3@austintexas.gov or call the department’s homicide tip line at (512) 477-3588.

Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo released a statement expressing his condolences to the family of the woman that resulted dead in the shooting.

“On behalf of the Austin Police Department we wish to extend our deepest condolences to the family and friends of the young woman who lost her life to this senseless act of violence and wishes for a speedy recovery to the individuals wounded,” he wrote on his Twitter account.

So far there have been no further updates as Austin Police Department investigates the incident. Luckily, the Austin shootings differ in severity and size from the others that have recently occurred in the state of Texas, where several police officers were killed in a racially-motivated assault.

With each passing month, the U.S. sees more and more shootings, which should be a cause for concern and a catalyst for gun control policy, a partisan issue. Sunday’s shootings were not considered “mass shootings,” but the first incident had the gunman firing onto a crowd in a nightlife district, something that can easily be reproduced wherever there is a great affluence of people.

Source: CNN