Austin police kill man after officer is shot
Incident at Southeast Austin duplex 3rd officer-involved shooting this month.
In the third Austin police shooting this month, officers responding to an urgent 911 call in Southeast Austin on Sunday night shot and killed a man after he wounded an officer.
Interim Police Chief Brian Manley said officers were initially called out about 10:49 p.m. to a duplex in the 5500 block of Ponciana Drive, across the street from Josephine Houston Elementary School. Someone had called 911 to request police, but the call
was disconnected before dispatchers could gather any more details.
The first three officers arrived about 10:50 p.m., Manley said.
Officers spoke to a resident on the rear side of the duplex who said they didn’t call police. Officers then knocked on the door of the other side of the duplex, but no one answered.
The incident took a violent turn when, as police were leaving, someone fired a gun from inside the home. One officer was hit in his right arm, and another injured his hand and knee, apparently during his scramble for cover. The third officer returned fire toward the house.
Police evacuated surrounding homes, and the Austin Police Department’s SWAT team geared up and headed to the duplex.
SWAT officers could be heard using a loudspeaker to order the person inside to “come out with your hands in the air and your hands open.”
Meanwhile, police used their social media accounts to warn neighbors that the area was not safe.
“This progressed through the early morning hours,” Manley said. “As the SWAT team was surrounding the house, they would report gunshots that were going off inside the house throughout the attempts to get the suspect to come out.”
Manley said authorities eventually used a robot to break down the front door of the house because they didn’t know whether more people were inside or if anyone else had been hurt.
Video from the robot showed the suspect coming out of the front door with a woman.
A SWAT officer then shot and killed the man, police said.
Austin police would not confirm whether the man was armed when he was shot, saying that detail is part of an ongoing investigation.
The officer who returned fire after gunshots wounded his fellow officer had graduated from the police academy in December, police said.
The SWAT officer who fired the fatal round has been with the department for 10 years.
Both have been placed on administrative duty while authorities conduct internal and criminal investigations into the incident, as is standard Austin police protocol in police shootings.
More than 15 Austin officers were already on administrative duty after three previous police shootings. But Manley has said that while the number is unprecedented, it wouldn’t affect day-to-day operations.
The officer who was shot, a five-year veteran, and the officer who received minor injuries, a 16-year-veteran, were listed in stable condition Monday.
Austin police reported that the neighborhood was safe about 3:35 a.m. Monday, but classes at Houston Elementary ultimately had to be canceled for the entire day as the investigation at the scene continued.
Monday’s incident is the fifth Austin police shooting this year:
On March 12, 24-yearold Kyle Thomas Garcia was wounded while exchanging gunfire with police in the 6200 block of La Naranja Lane in Southwest Austin. An arrest affidavit said police were called out about 12:30 a.m. after receiving reports from a woman who said her son was threatening his father with a gun.
Five days earlier, police said 46-year-old Victor Ancira was wielding a pickax when he was killed after being shot by officers in the 4800 block of Tanney Street, just off of Springdale Road in East Austin. The five officers opened fire and three officers used less lethal methods, including a stun gun, in the incident.
On Feb. 19, 23-year-old Thomas Vincent Alvarez was fatally shot by police after Alvarez led officers on a chase that ended at an apartment complex in the 4900 block of Edge Creek Drive. Seven officers were involved in that shooting, police said.
On Jan. 26, police said officer Matthew Jackson shot 23-year-old Christopher Eric Giles of Albuquerque, N.M., during a response to a burglary in Central Austin.