Austin PD Officer, Suspect Wounded In Shooting Near U.S. Hwy 290

Austin TX

09 April, 2021

11:11 AM

Description

AUSTIN, TX — An Austin police officer and a suspect are in the hospital after a shooting where officers fired their weapons in northeast Austin early Friday. The officer who was shot is hospitalized with non-life threatening injuries, Austin Police Chief Joe Chacon told reporters at a news conference on Friday. The suspect, described as a man in his late 20s to early 30s, was also struck by gunfire and is hospitalized with life-threatening injuries. He is in stable condition, Chacon said. The interim police chief said police received a 911 call around 12:03 a.m. Friday from a caller who told authorities they were in a car and being chased and shot at by a different car, which Chacon described as a pickup truck. The caller was not injured in the incident, he added. Chacon said authorities learned that the 911 caller's car was traveling near the 6300 block of the westbound frontage road of U.S. Highway 290. Officer involved shooting 6300 block E US HWY 290 https://t.co/mPkJzI6aQq— Austin Police Department (@Austin_Police) April 9, 2021 "As they were turning on different streets, the suspect's vehicle continued to follow them and continued to shoot at them," Chacon said. Chacon said officers found the 911 caller's car in an office parking lot near the area around 12:05 a.m., and were able to get a description of the suspect's truck. He said a two-officer patrol car around 12:07 a.m. found and stopped the pickup truck believed to be involved in the shooting. As officers stopped the truck and exited their patrol car, they were hit by gunfire, Chacon said. Both officers returned fire at the suspect, Chacon said. One of the officers and the suspect were struck by gunfire. Austin-Travis County EMS was called to the scene, where they attended to the injured officer and suspect. Chacon said detectives are still investigating the motive of the shooting and what relationship, if any, the man had with the 911 caller who first reported the incident. He said the suspect could face attempted capital murder charges for shooting at the officers with intent to cause harm. Police said they are also still investigating the route in which the suspect chased and shot at the 911 caller, and whether or not any other people were injured. Chacon said the shooting was captured on both of the officer's body-worn cameras and the dashboard camera on the patrol car. "I'll just tell you that after having watched all of that video, it's chilling and we are lucky that right now that we do not have more people that are injured, particularly our officers who in the face of this danger displayed bravery," Chacon said. Chacon said the officer who was injured and being treated at a medical facility has been with Austin police for two-and-a-half years. The other officer has a little more than a year of experience at the department, Chacon added. As is the case for all officer-involved shootings, both will be placed on administrative leave while police investigate the incident. Austin police will open a criminal investigation into the incident that led to the officer-involved shooting, as well as an administrative investigation into the actions taken by the officers who fired their weapons. "I think this is emblematic of the issues that I have been talking about for the last several days about gun crime that is happening here in the city of Austin and why we are working on a violent crime initiative," Chacon said. "And I will be rolling that out with more information in the next week to talk about the things that we're going to be doing, but it's highly concerning to me that we have these types of incidents of people shooting at officers. We need to get this under control."