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Recently unveiled police body camera footage reveals the chaotic scene as patrons and pedestrians scrambled for safety when a shooter opened fire outside a Texas bar. The incident left three people dead and is currently being probed as a possible act of terrorism.
“Everybody down!” an officer can be heard shouting. “Where is he?”
The harrowing events, captured both by officers’ body cameras and local surveillance, were made public on Thursday. They depict the swift chaos that unfolded early Sunday in Austin’s vibrant downtown entertainment district, where more than a dozen individuals were injured.
Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis shared that officers arrived at the scene just 56 seconds after receiving the first 911 call. The suspect was shot and killed by police after opening fire on them.
While the investigation continues, Chief Davis refrained from commenting on a potential motive for the shooting, which took place a day after the U.S. and Israel conducted an attack on Iran.
Police have identified the gunman as 53-year-old Ndiaga Diagne and say he legally bought the pistol and rifle that he used in the attack outside Buford’s Backyard Beer Garden. The venue is on Sixth Street, a nightlife destination filled with bars and music clubs close to the University of Texas at Austin..
Authorities now know 19 people were hit by gunfire, including the three who died, Davis said Thursday. One person remains in critical condition.
Most of those who were shot were outside the bar, including one victim who was waiting for a ride, she said.
Screaming and shouts of “get down” can be heard on a 911 call released Thursday. “There has been a shooting at Buford’s,” one caller said. “There are people dead over here. We need help right now.”
Diagne was not on the radar of authorities before he opened fire early Sunday. Davis said investigators have found he was the subject of a mental health-related welfare check, possibly in 2022, by an agency elsewhere.
He fired the first shots from his SUV then parked his vehicle and emerged with a rifle, police said. He shot another person before officers rushed to the intersection and shot and killed him, Davis said.
Jorge Pederson, 30, an aspiring mixed martial arts fighter, died from his gunshot wounds Monday. He had just moved to Texas from Minnesota. His former gym, the Academy Martial Arts Gym, said in a Facebook post that he brought “light and joy into the grueling work of training.”
Also killed were 21-year-old Savitha Shan and 19-year-old Ryder Harrington.
Shan, a business student at the University of Texas at Austin, had a job waiting for her at a consulting firm, her family said in a statement released through the university. It said she was an only child and described her death as “profoundly unfair.”
Harrington had attended Texas Tech University through last fall, and his former fraternity brothers at Beta Theta Pi recalled in an Instagram post his ability to “make ordinary days unforgettable.”
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