Two Austin Police Officers Injured In South Austin SWAT Call

AUSTIN, TX — Two Austin police officers were injured following an hours-long standoff in a South Austin neighborhood that began late Sunday.

The incident began at 10:49 p.m. along the 5500 block of Ponciana Drive and continued into early Monday morning. It culminated with an officer sustaining a gunshot injury to an arm, another to a hand and knee and the suspect dead at the scene.

The officers are expected to be okay after receiving medical treatment for their injuries. But it's still unclear if the gunshot injury to the officers's hand was inflicted by the suspect, and it's unclear whether the suspect was armed when he was shot. Those details are part of an ongoing investigation, police said.

A SWAT team was sent in outside the dwelling where the suspect had barricaded himself, yielding a tense situation for nearby residents. "At this time the scene is not safe and remains active. Stay inside until further notice," police warned residents early Monday morning via Twitter.

Police were alerted to the situation when someone called 911 but hung up. When officers arrived at the scene they knocked on one unit at a duplex but learned the resident had not called 911. After knocking on the door of the other unit, gunshots were heard coming from inside the house, Interim Police Chief Brian Manley said during a subsequent press briefing.

After several hours, police sent in a robot to breach the front door of the duplex unit. After that, the man exited the building with a woman. A SWAT team member then shot at the suspect, taking him down. He was pronounced dead at 2:10 a.m., Manley said.

The woman was taken into protective custody and was unharmed, Manley said. The SWAT team member who fired the fatal shot has been with the force for ten years, while the original officer responding graduated from the police academy in 2017, Manley said.

The gunshot sustaining a hand injury from gunfire has been with the police officers five years. The other officer injuring a hand and knee is a 16-year veteran. Both face non-life-threatening injuries, and were placed on administrative desk duty per standard protocol after officer-involved shootings, Manley said.

The site of the SWAT call is not far from Josephine Houston Elementary School located at 5409 Ponciana Dr., prompting school officials early Monday morning to cancel classes outright given the nearby SWAT situation.

The woman who had been inside the home was taken into protective custody unharmed, Interim Police Chief Brian Manley said at a subsequent press briefing. She was evaluated at the scene, but was determined to have been unharmed, he added.

The incident marks the third officer-involved shooting in Austin this month alone and the fifth since the year began:

• On March 12, police responded to the 6200 block of La Naranja Lane, not far from MoPac Expressway and Davis Lane, just before 1 a.m. A woman initially had called police to report the suspect had acted in a threatening manner against his father. At a press briefing, Manley said shots were heard emanating from inside the home, and gun play ensued between the suspect and police when the former exited the home. The 23-year-old suspect sustained non-life-threatening injuries after being shot by police. 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 — were placed on administrative leave per standard protocol after officer-involved shootings.
• The week before that incident 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.
• 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.

The officer-involved shootings come in the wake of a new policy meant for officers to deescalate such tense encounters with civilians in an attempt to resolve confrontations through non-lethal means. Those alternative techniques do not include suspending the use of military-style equipment invariably deployed to standoffs that inherently raise the level of tension at such situations for nearby residents and suspects alike. Typically seen after such action is taken are tanks, armored cars, police robots and canines as an officer with a megaphone continually demands the exit of the suspect on the scene — often for many hours into the night.

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