Gun violence is gun violence. The Austin American-Statesman reports as many as 13 people shot early this morning in the entertainment district in downtown Austin, Texas:
The shooter or shooters remain at large, and detectives were working rapidly to view an array of video gathered by bystanders and other cameras near the scene in the 400 block of East Sixth Street to identify any suspects. Authorities say the shooter appears to have fired randomly.
Austin-Travis County EMS medics responded at 1:25 a.m. to what they described as an “active attack.” Medics took four people to the hospital by ambulance, Austin police took six others to the hospital and three were taken by private vehicle, EMS officials said.
“It was very difficult to contain the scene, it was very difficult for EMS to make their way into this crowd,” interim Austin Police Chief Joe Chacon said. “And because of the nature of the injuries, officers had to go ahead and use their police vehicles to put some of these shooting victims into their vehicles and transport them themselves.”
Police told the American-Statesman that the crowd in the city’s entertainment district at the time was near the size of a “pre-pandemic” group, meaning potentially tens of thousands of people gathered in the area anchored by Sixth Street.
Taylor Blount was at a Sixth Street bar when he heard a flurry of shots.
“I only heard them from a single weapon and then everyone started running in different directions,” he said. “People were freaking out a lot, and there were some people crying, but most people were just freaking out.
Austin Mayor Steve Adler this morning issued a statement:
Anywhere else in Texas, that last line might imperil a politician’s reelection.
My first introduction to Molly Ivins was “Inside the Austin funhouse” from the May 1975 edition of The Atlantic. (Pre-internet, remember, kids?) Her article on the Texas legislature noted the, um, rambunctiousness of Texas lawmakers and their propensity when debates got heated to go to “fist city.”
Nearlly half a century later, fists are no longer the default dispute-solver in Texas nor in a lot of other places in this country. Do you feel safer?