Man Killed By Police Officers In South Austin

SOUTH AUSTIN, TEXAS — A man killed in an officer-involved shooting early Tuesday was shot after making a hand gesture as if he had a gun pointing at officers, the chief said.

The incident started late Monday, when officers conducted a traffic stop near the 6400 block of South Interstate 35, Police Chief Brian Manley explained to reporters in a press briefing. The driver who was pulled over chose to drove off, but officers opted not to embark on a chase, Manley said.

Later, Manley said, the owner of the car was tracked to a home via the vehicle's registration information. Police spoke to the owners just before midnight, learning from a man there that he had received a text message from his son telling him he had crashed the family car near the corner of East William Cannon Drive and McKinney Falls Parkway in southeast Austin.

By around 1:40 a.m., police found the crashed car at the 7900 block of East William Cannon Drive along with another vehicle that also appeared to have been involved in a crash. Manley said the man in the car was holing a gun to his head as police tried to coax him to drop it.

But after about seven minutes of negotiating, the man is alleged to have risen from the ground where he had been crouched, raised his hands and aimed at the officers as if pointing a gun. The two officers at the scene fired at the man as a result.

The man was rushed to a nearby hospital but was pronounced dead just before 3:30 a.m. The man is said to have been 27 years old, but Manley noted the age had not been officially confirmed. Neither officer was injured as a result of the incident. Both have been on the police force for just under two years, Manley noted.

"This is a circumstance that no officer wants to find themselves in and this is a circumstance no family wants to find themselves in and hearts at the police department go out to this man's family," Manley said. "He was obviously in some state of crisis to where he would do this tonight and this is not a circumstance that the police department nor any officer wants to find themselves in."

The incident came the day after four police officers were shot in Houston after trying to effect an arrest. Two of those officers now are in stable condition after being reportedly shot in the neck. It's unclear if the Austin officers were already anxious given the reports of the officers' shooting in Houston mere hours before their own encounter with a dangerous suspect.

In the aftermath of the Austin serial bombing case — another incident of heightened anxiety for officers — there were three officer-involved shootings in March alone, the same month parcel bombs were being sent by a suspect later killed. By that early part of last year, there already had been five officer-involved shootings in Austin.

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