Pickax-Wielding Man Shot Dead By Police In East Austin

EAST AUSTIN, TX — A man wielding a pickax was fatally shot by police during a standoff early Wednesday, officials confirmed.

The unidentified 46-year-old reportedly told police in a telephone call that he had killed his father and brother at a home along the 4800 block of Tanney Street, Interim Police Chief Brian Manley said in a subsequent press briefing. After the man's call to police, officers arrived to the scene just before 4:30 a.m. and encountered the man in the street.

"Drop the weapon," police are said to have commanded the man. "Please drop the pickax," police added. But after about ten minutes of such spontaneous negotiation, officers began to approach the man, using non-lethal impact munitions and a stun gun first as the man inched toward the house, according to Manley's account.

The interim chief added that the man blocked entry into the home with a chair. Then, when the man raised his pickax against approaching officers, they fired, according to the official account. The man was pronounced dead at the scene.

Ultimately, police found that nobody in the home had been harmed — despite the troubled man's claims.

Five officers were involved in the shooting, the interim chief said: One a six-year veteran, three officers who have been working at the Austin Police Department for one year and another who has been at APD for less than a year. All the officers involved were placed on administrative duty pending the outcome of an investigation — a step undertaken as part of police protocol after officer-involved shootings that have become something of a regular occurrence in Austin.

“My heart goes out —the department’s heart, the city’s heart goes out — to this family,” Manley said, referring to the dead man's grief-stricken loved ones who had gathered at the scene. “But when we respond to an incident like this, and not knowing what had happened in that house ... there was a need to get in and make sure that there had not been anyone harmed,” Manley said.

The interim chief noted the man had left behind a suicide note.

The police killing is the latest in a string of such incidents involving officers and the second time a man has been shot dead by multiple officers in as many months. Austin Police Chief Brian Manley described the timeline of events that led to the latest officer-involved shooting in Austin. In South Austin last month, seven police officers opened fire on a suspect as he tried ramming the gates of an apartment complex at the 4900 block of Edge Creek Drive in an attempt to gain entry.

In that Feb. 19 incident, the man supposedly put a gun to his head after police pursued him following a domestic disturbance. Manley claims the man not only ignored claims to drop the weapon but pointed it at them, prompting seven of the officers at the scene to fire at him in a hail of bullets. Pronounced dead at the scene was Thomas Vincent Alvarez.

Ironically, both police shootings come in the wake of an ambitious new initiative intended to deescalate confrontations with suspects in an attempt to resolve issues without lethal means.

Related stories:

Kidnapping Suspect Shot Dead By Austin Police Officers

Austin Cop-Involved Shooting Came Weeks After Deescalation Call

The APD's new policy came by virtue of a revamped edition of the Austin Police Department General Orders, containing new requirements for officers to compel them to first attempt to tamp down volatile situations before using their police-issued weapons — guns, batons, Tasers and the like. It's a lengthy document of 755 pages. Yet in both of the most recent officer-involved shootings, suspects have been killed after mere minutes such tactics have been used. And in both recent cases, it's been multiple officers taking the lethal step — not just one officer delivering the fatal blow to an uncooperative suspect.

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