Officer shoots suspect after fatal stabbing
A woman was killed at a Central Austin rental complex, chief says.
Austin police officer shoots and critically injures a man suspected of stabbing to death a woman minutes earlier, chief says.
An Austin police officer shot and critically injured a man authorities suspect stabbed a woman to death at a Central Austin apartment complex Friday morning.
Police did not identify the victim, the suspect or the officer who fired his weapon on the 5000 block of Lynnwood Street, where the stabbing took place.
“It is obviously with great sadness that we lost someone today,” interim Police Chief Brian Manley said Friday. “But I can say, from what I understand, our officers did everything they could when they got here to put an end to the threat this suspect posed to this victim.”
Manley said that investigators were still working to determine any potential connections between the woman and the stabbing suspect as well as whether either of them lived at the apartment complex.
According to a timeline laid out by Manley, the incident began about 6:38 a.m., when someone called police to report a disturbance at the complex, located on the northern edge of Central Austin’s usually quiet Rosedale neighborhood. The caller said the incident involved a man and a woman who were possibly on drugs.
The caller stayed on the line as the incident unfolded, according to Manley. At 6:41 a.m., the caller said the man was stabbing the woman. At 6:42 a.m., the caller reported the woman was heavily bleeding, and a minute later, the caller added that the victim appeared to be unconscious, Manley said.
When the first officer arrived at the apartment complex’s courtyard at 6:49 a.m., Manley said he found the suspect standing over the victim, knife in hand.
The officer repeatedly ordered the man to drop the weapon and opened fire when the man made “additional aggressive acts” towards the victim, the chief said.
The man resisted when officers moved in to arrest him, leading to “a rather lengthy struggle to get the suspect into custody,” Manley said.
Authorities declared the woman dead at the scene and rushed
the wounded 50-year-old suspect to Dell Seton Medical Center.
The officer who pulled the trigger, a 23-year veteran of the Police Department, was placed on paid leave pending the outcome of the investigation, which is standard department practice.
Manley said the entire incident was captured by the officer’s body camera.
Across the street, Bob Green, 67, walked out of his front door around 7:30 a.m. to take out his trash and found his street filled with police cars.
“All of a sudden, we have 150,000 red flashing lights,” he said, adding that he didn’t hear the gunshot.
“It’s a pretty quiet street,” said Matt Martin, who lives just down the street. “Whole area is pretty quiet, usually.”
The shooting appears to be the eighth officer-involved shooting in Austin this year, four of which were fatal. Authorities have said that four of the seven people involved in the previous police shootings either suffered from mental illness or appeared to be under the influence of drugs.