 "Texas shooting: 3 shot dead at Target store in Austin; suspect caught after police chase")
A gunman opened fire in the car park of a Target store in the Texas capital, killing at least three people before stealing two vehicles in a chaotic escape that ended with police using a Taser to detain him on the other side of the city, authorities have said.
Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis described the suspect as a man in his 30s with “a mental health history”. She said he fled the scene in a stolen vehicle, crashed it, and then stole another from a dealership. Officers eventually captured him about 32 km away, in south Austin, where he was taken into custody.
Davis said officers responding to a call at around 2.15 pm on Monday found three people shot in the Target car park.
Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services Chief Robert Luckritz confirmed that two people were pronounced dead at the scene, while a third died after being taken to hospital. Another person was treated at the scene for unrelated injuries.
“This is a very sad day for Austin. It’s a very sad day for us all, and my condolences go out to the families,” Davis said, adding that she had no further details to release about the victims.
Witness Lonnie Lee, 22, said she and her sister had visited the Target just a couple of hours earlier before leaving to have lunch with their grandparents. When they returned to the area to continue shopping, they found the car park cordoned off and swarming with police.
“We got really, really lucky,” Lee said. “And some people didn’t.”
The shooting occurred during the busy back-to-school shopping season ahead of the new academic year. Target’s corporate office has not yet responded to a request for comment from the Associated Press.
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View All“This is a devastating situation, and my heart is with the victims and their families,” Austin Mayor Kirk Watson posted on X. “While this remains an active and ongoing investigation, what I’ll say is that this was a sickening, cowardly act of gun violence.”
At a Jiffy Lube auto service centre sharing the car park with the Target, employees locked the doors and sheltered inside once they learned a shooting was under way. Paul Smith, a worker at the store, said he saw people fleeing their cars in panic.
“I had just gotten back from the Target like a minute before,” Smith said.
The attack comes just over two weeks after a mass stabbing at a Walmart store in Michigan, where a man accused of injuring 11 people on 26 July was charged with terrorism and multiple counts of attempted murder.
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