Shooting by police raises questions
Several residents say 27-year-old man did nothing threatening.
Two Austin police officers responding to reports of a person possibly under the influence of drugs shot a man in Northeast Austin early Sunday.
The 27-year-old was in critical condition, Assistant Chief Brian Manley said.
Officers were dispatched to a disturbance call at 1:05 a.m. in the 6400 block of Springdale Road in East Austin near Manor Road.
When they arrived at the scene, they found the man in a second-story breezeway, Manley said.
The caller who had alerted police suggested that the man was under the influence of PCP, Manley said.
The officers waited for additional personnel to arrive before approaching the man, he said.
At least one officer observed what he believed to be a pistol in the man’s waist- band, Manley said. Police gave orders before two officers opened fire on the man, who did not fire any shots, Manley said.
He would not say whether a gun was recovered.
The wounded man is black. Police did not disclose the identities or races of the officers who shot him.
Several residents at the Walnut Creek Apartments said that they saw the shooting and that they did not see the man make a sudden move or do anything that might have caused the officers to shoot.
While some of the witnesses had limited views of the man from where they were standing, one woman who said she had a clear view of him said he did not draw a weapon.
The woman, who declined to give her name, said that the officers kept telling him to come downstairs but that he remained standing at the top of the stairs.
Police told the man’s wife, Ebony Allen, that they would charge him with possessing a firearm as a felon.
The family has not been allowed to see him, and that has been really upsetting, Allen said.
“The next time we’ll get to see him might be if he’s dead or in jail,” Allen said.
Several people who witnessed the shooting identified the man by a nickname; Allen declined to give his name until police have notified his mother.
Neighbor Jarrod Scales, 24, who witnessed the shooting, said police came to the apartment complex just minutes after the man arrived in the neighborhood.
Scales said he chatted with the man for a bit before the man went into the fourplex next door.
Minutes later, several police officers showed up with their guns drawn, witnesses said.
Scales and neighbor Ima Jean Jackson, 34, said they assumed it was a drug bust because the officers were yelling to “get down” and “don’t move.” Police kept telling residents to get back, Jackson said.
Three officers standing together fired their guns at the man, four witnesses said.
“There are plenty of ways to handle this, and I don’t think they handled it the right way,” Scales said of the officers. “I think it was wrong for them to draw their guns in the first place.”
Manley said a police investigation is underway to determine the circumstances of the shooting.
Three officers standing together fired their guns at the man, witnesses said. An investigation is underway to determine the circumstances.