Omni Hotel shooter had filed to run for U.S. president
Slain Austinite ran for constable and clerk, had filed for the presidency.
Michael Holt, the gunman in the Omni Austin Hotel Downtown shooting who killed a man and then was shot by police, had filed for candidacy in the 2016 presidential race.
The man killed by police just moments after he gunned down a taxi driver in the Omni Austin Hotel Downtown on Sunday had a history of running for public office, including filing candidacy documents for U.S. president a month ago.
Michael McGregor Holt, 35, filed documents with the Federal Election Commission on June 9 that indicated his intention to run for president, unaffiliated with any political party.
It was not the first time Holt showed intent to seek public office.
Holt ran for office four times
in Travis County as a libertarian for several different seats, according to records at the Travis County clerk’s office. Holt earned a respectable percentage of the vote each time, often as the only challenger to Democrat incumbents.
In 2008, Holt sought the office of Precinct 5’s constable but lost with about 16 percent of the vote.
In 2010, he ran for justice of the peace in Precinct 5, earning 16 percent of the vote.
In 2012, he lost his race for Precinct 5 constable against Carlos Lopez with just under 20 percent of the vote.
In 2014, Holt ran for Travis County clerk, los- ing to Dana DeBeauvoir but garnering 19 percent of the vote.
The presidential candidacy forms, which listed Holt’s address in East Austin, showed no other fundraising representatives. An FEC worker said Holt would have been required to file the documents if he raised or spent more than $5,000 on a presidential campaign. However, the forms were not necessarily an indication that he had spent or raised any money for a campaign.
He was one of 448 people on the FEC’s list of people from around the nation to file a “statement of candidacy” for U.S. president.
Police say Holt killed Yellow Cab Austin driver Conrado Guadalupe Contreras, 60, when Holt opened fire in the Omni lobby, wielding a rifle. As a 911 dispatcher handled the emergency call from the hotel, Holt shot and killed Contreras, police have said.
Responding officers exchanged gunfire with Holt and chased him into the hotel. As Holt ran toward a hotel restaurant, police said, officer Carlos Lopez shot and killed him.
Months before the shooting, Holt continued to identify as a libertarian, often posting on reddit.com on a message board dedicated to the party. There, Holt posted about what appears to be a startup venture he was calling Hero’s Q, his LinkedIn profile states.
It was meant to be a charity wallet program. And Holt had registered the business name FundMe LLC with the Texas secretary of state, records showed.
“Cool story for thee,” Holt wrote. “I quit my corp job this ( January), to start a charity wallet platform, and the rest of my life bec ame amazing.”