AUSTIN.- A series of shooting attacks throughout an entire day left four dead and at least three wounded in Austin and another two dead near San Antonio, authorities reported. Texas. There is a suspect detained.
The dead were found in two homes in Austin and in a residence east of San Antonio. The injured are two police officers and a cyclist, police said.
The arrested man, in his 30s, was charged with aggravated murder, interim Austin Police Chief Robin Henderson said at a news conference Tuesday night. His name was not revealed.
“We strongly believe that one suspect is responsible for all incidents,” Henderson said of the attacks in Austin. Police “did not determine these incidents were related until the last one occurred” on Tuesday night, he added.
An Austin school district police officer was injured Tuesday around 10:45 a.m., Henderson said. Around noon, they found the bodies of a man and a woman in a home. At 5:00 pm, a cyclist suffered gunshot wounds, but his life was not in danger. At 7 p.m., police responded to a burglary report at another home, where they found two people dead.
In this latest incident, a police officer saw a man in the backyard. A shootout ensued between the two and the officer suffered several injuries. He is hospitalized in stable condition.
Police said the man, who was uninjured, drove away in a car and they chased him until he crashed at an intersection and was arrested. He had a gun, Henderson said.
It was unknown if the man had any relationship with the victims.
In Bexar County, about 80 miles (129 kilometers) to the south, Sheriff Javier Salazar said his office received a call from Austin police at 7:45 a.m. about a shooting. They told him that the detainee had ties to a home east of San Antonio.
As two officers approached the house, “I think they saw water coming out of the residence as if there was a leak,” Salazar said. They found two bodies in the house, but Salazar did not clarify how they died.
The deaths in San Antonio are believed to have preceded those in Austin, Salazar said.
Source: AP
