Officer-Involved Shooting in Northeast Austin

A 34-year-old black man was shot by police and taken to a North Austin hospital to be treated for non-life threatening injuries Sunday night after leading APD on a hour-and-a-half long chase through the Rundberg neighborhood.

APD Chief of Staff Brian Manley said Sunday night before 10pm that Edward sector patrol officers were called to a parking lot on the 9800 block of the North IH-35 Frontage Road at 5:05pm after employees inside the lot’s business saw the man “threatening a customer with a knife.” Manley said APD received multiple other calls about the man in the five minutes it took for officers to respond to the scene. Manley said an officer issued commands for the man to drop the knife, but that he fled instead.

Manley said the man at one point jumped the median and ran across I-35, ending up in a shopping center just north of Rundberg Lane. Officers made calls for backup, setting up a patrol wall along the west side of the Northeast Austin neighborhood. The man was found behind a tire shop, but fled again, and ran down to Showplace Lanes. Manley said an officer in one squad car followed the man to Showplace Lanes but stopped driving and ran after him down the road. At that point, he said, the officer was armed with a shotgun. He said the in-car camera shows the officer gave a series of commands for the man to stop fleeing and drop the knife to no avail. Manley said the officer ran out of the camera’s picture at that point. He said that gunshots are heard, then more running; commands to drop the knife, and another gunshot.

APD then called for Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services, knowing there was a possibility that the man had been shot. He successfully hid again, however. Manley said an hour-and-a-half long search involving K-9 teams, two helicopters, and “officers from across the city” ensued. The man was eventually found hiding in a car at the end of Oriole Drive. Manley said officers shot a non-lethal bullet at a window, then attempted to take the man into custody. He was non-compliant but ultimately apprehended. During the arrest, a service dog bit the man. He was taken to a nearby hospital to be treated for the bite and what’s believed to be a gunshot wound near his shoulder.

The officer who delivered the wound has been placed on administrative duty while Internal Affairs looks at the shooting, as is customary with all officer-involved incidents.

This is the second officer-involved shooting of 2016 and the first since Ofc. Geoffrey Freeman shot and killed 17-year-old David Joseph on Feb. 8, two miles away from last night’s incident. A disciplinary announcement for that incident is expected later today.