Officer-Involved Shooting Reported In South Austin

SOUTH AUSTIN, TX — An officer-involved shooting was reported early Monday in South Austin — the fourth shooting involving an Austin Police Department officer so far this year and the second in less than a week.

The latest officer-involved shooting occurred just before 1 a.m. along the 6200 block of La Naranja Lane, not far from MoPac Expressway and Davis Lane, according to police tweet.

Police later said the person shot is a 23-year-old Hispanic man. The call initially came in at 12:30 a.m., police said, after a woman called police to report the man was acting in a threatening manner against his father. Interim Police Chief Brian Manley said shots were heard ringing out inside the house when they arrived.

By 12:48 a.m., Manley said there was an exchange of gunfire between the suspect and officers when the man came out of the house. Asked to exit the home, he came out with his hands up while injured from the earlier gunplay. His parents were unharmed, according to the interim chief.

Austin-Travis County EMS medics said they transported the man to South Austin Medical Center with injuries they assessed as serious yet deemed not to be life-threatening. By the time police gave their press briefing, the man had been released from the hospital.

Manley said two officers involved in the shooting — one who's been on the force for six years and another for less than a year — have been placed on administrative leave per standard protocol after officer-involved shootings.

The latest shooting — like the three others this year happening in less than three months since the new year began — has occurred as the Austin police force operates without a police contract and under the state's civil service law. Despite the quick succession of each shooting, the police union CLEAT (Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas) has sued the City of Austin in an attempt to remove the municipality's police monitor as a measure of accountability.

At the scene during the early morning press briefing, Manley was joined by an assistant city manager, the district attorney and police monitor to ensure the incident was handled in compliance with departmental policy, Manley noted.

The shootings also come in the wake of a new policy aimed at police deescalation of police confrontations in lieu of lethal force.

Just last week — five days ago on March 7 — a man with a pickax was shot dead by officers in East Austin after ignoring commands to drop the weapon. The 46-year-old man wielding the pickax was fired upon by five APD officers, the police department later confirmed.

"My heart goes out —the department's heart, the city's heart goes out — to this family," Manley said after that police shooting, 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.

And last month, seven officers opened fire on a suspect after he tried ramming the gates of an apartment complex in South Austin. In that Feb. 19 incident, the man supposedly put a gun to his head after police pursued him following a domestic disturbance before he was shot dead in a hail of bullets.

In January, police shot a burglary suspect whose invasion prompted the home's occupants to hide in a closet. Police later claimed the man fired at them first, forcing them to return fire along the 4500 block of Avenue G in Central Austin.

Manley has referred to the existence of dashcam and bodycam video in the recent officer-involved shootings, it's not been released.

Media: reference officer involved, please stage in the 6300 block Abilene Trail. Thanks APD PIO. PIO91
— Austin Police Dept (@Austin_Police) March" class="redactor-linkify-object">https://twitter.com/Austin_Pol... 12, 2018

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Austin Cop-Involved Shooting Came Weeks After Deescalation Call

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