A Texas gunman has been arrested after a shooting in the U. S. state left six other people dead and three wounded, in addition to two police officers, the government said Wednesday.
The shooting raged for several hours Tuesday in Austin, where four other people were shot and killed and the suspect engaged in a shootout with police, and in the San Antonio domain, where a man and a woman were found dead in a home.
“We strongly believe that a suspect is guilty of all incidents,” Robin Henderson, interim leader of the Austin Police Department, said of the Austin killings.
The 34-year-old suspect, who has been identified, “is in custody and no longer poses a risk to our Austin community. “
At least four incidents were tied to the suspect, including two double homicides, the wounding of a police officer near a school, and the non-fatal shooting of a cyclist.
One of the double homicides occurred in San Antonio, miles southwest of Austin.
Police said they gained an alert from the Austin government to search a home linked to the gunman, where they discovered the bodies of a 55-year-old man and a 56-year-old man.
“We don’t have a definitive identity at this time. But we’re pretty sure who those other people are. . . They are believed to be the parents of the recently arrested suspect,” said Sheriff Javier Salazar of Bexar County, which includes San Antonio.
“Certainly it’s a pretty grisly crime scene,” Salazar told reporters.
He said he believed the guy committed the Bexar County murders first, “and then the suspect drove to Austin and did what he did there. “
In Austin, police exchanged gunfire with the suspect at the scene of a home invasion in which two victims were found dead. One officer was injured. The gunman fled in a vehicle and crashed after a chase with police.
The man arrested in possession of a firearm and charged with capital murder, Henderson said, describing the incidents as a series of “tragic occasions and horrific criminal acts. “
Salazar said the suspect had been arrested in January 2022 for domestic violence against his parents and a sister. He was freed two months later and ordered to wear an ankle bracelet, which he later cut off, he added.
Shootings are alarmingly common in the United States, a country where there are more guns than people and where attempts to clamp down on the spread of firearms are always met with stiff political resistance.
In late October, a man armed with a semiautomatic rifle opened fire at a bowling alley in Lewiston, Maine, and then continued to rampage through a bar and restaurant. He killed 18 other people and was later found dead from a self-inflicted bullet.