The first incident happened near East Sixth and San Jacinto streets, in the heart of the city’s entertainment district, where gunshots rang out around 2:17 a.m. Police say the suspect in this incident is still at large.
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Police across the country, and especially in Texas, remain on edge after a rash of shootings, including one on July 7 in Dallas which saw five officers killed by a black extremist. A woman was declared dead at the scene and three other women were sent to a nearby hospital for medical treatment. The suspect was transported to a local hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
A man shot into a crowd in downtown Austin just after the bars closed, killing one woman and wounding at least four others. However, that person’s status at this point is undetermined.
Manley says a suspect began firing into the crowd after an initial disturbance. There is no word on the conditions of the victims at the hospital.
Captain Rick Rutledge of the Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services tells The Associated Press that one woman has been pronounced dead at the scene, and two women and a man have been taken to University Medical Center Brackenridge with gunshot wounds. One of the potential challenges for police will be finding a witness who was not drinking at the time of the shooting.
On June 12, a gunman who sympathized with Islamist extremist groups killed 49 people at a nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. He was taken down by witnesses at the scene, and EMS took him to the hospital.
The shootings in the Texas state capital follow several recent major acts of gun violence in the United States.
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Police initially believed the two shootings were related and that they were dealing with an “active shooter”, but that was not the case, he added.
