Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo said in a statement Sunday that his department is working to identify and arrest the person responsible for the shootings, and urged people who have video of the shooting or the aftermath to send it to police via email.
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The incident began shortly after 2:15 a.m. (0715 GMT) in a busy downtown area filled with bars and nightclubs, with police warning people on Twitter to steer clear of the area due to an “active shooter”.
Five women were shot and at least one is dead after two separate shootings in downtown Austin early Sunday morning.
One woman was pronounced dead at the scene, and three other women were taken to University Medical Center Brackenridge with injuries that were serious, but not life-threatening. A fifth victim declined transport to the hospital.
A second unrelated shooting occurred seven minutes later in a parking garage, a mere blocks from the first incident. The suspect is said to be still at large.
“One individual (there) did pull out a weapon and fire it at another individual”, Manley said.
Witnesses engaged the suspect, disarmed him and took him down, Manley said.
Officials with the Austin Police Department say there is an active shooting incident downtown and there are multiple victims. Police say a man fired shots during an aggravated assault.
At a pre-dawn press conference broadcast via Periscope, Austin Police Chief of Staff Brian Manley said the unidentified shooter in the first incident, believed to be a white or light-skinned Hispanic male in his 20s, was still at large. “That person’s status at this point is undetermined”.
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Manley said that a woman in her 30s was killed and that the incident involved a person shooting into a crowd. The suspect in this shooting was allegedly engaging in an aggravated robbery and fired at his would-be victim.
