Officials give update on Austin bar shooting

Let's go now to Austin, Texas, where police are updating us on the deadly mass shooting outside a bar over the weekend that may be tied to the strikes against Iran. A Family Resource Center is being stood up, as we know numerous people have been affected by this, and we are daily, hourly getting calls of people that have been victimized by this. The Department will be releasing information soon on what that looks like. When I arrived on the scene again, it was complex and very large. The work being done by the Austin Fire Department, the Travis County Emergency Medical Service, and APD was quite impressive. Once the initial scene was secured, we reached out to our federal partners to assist in this resource-intensive scene and to address concerns of potential terrorism. We are working in tandem with the FBI, conducting numerous interviews and gathering evidence. If you can imagine, we have over 150 witnesses to this event that we are working with the FBI. And we are also investigating an officer-involved shooting. As I have committed in the past, in any officer-involved shooting, we will be releasing info as quickly as possible. Later this week, potentially Thursday, we'll be releasing body-worn camera of this event, as well as information on the suspect, including criminal history. Again, we are making-- and I want you to know that we are making tremendous significant progress in this case, but it will take time. In closing, I want to take, again, a minute, echo the mayor, and talk about just the fantastic work that the Austin Police Department, with the Travis County Emergency Medical Services, did here. Multiple lives were saved. In Texas, we are fortunate to have the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training Center, and that's the alert center, through Texas State University. And that training, there is no doubt, that, that and that coordinated response with EMS saved lives this night. Mayor, I'll turn it back to you.

Sure. Thank you. I also want to point out that we're joined today by our city manager, TC Broadnax, and council member who represents the Downtown area, Zo Qadri. Before we take your questions, I want to say that we recognize that this is a very traumatic moment in our city. But when I talk about being proud of APD and Fire and EMS, I want to also say how proud I am in how the people that are this city have reacted with such great compassion. We are all mourning together and grieving as a group, but we're seeing tremendous compassion and love coming out of the people of Austin. And so I urge everyone at this moment of trauma to reach out to each other and take care of each other, and take care of our home. Be with each other. While this is a dark moment, our people are creating a lot of light in Austin, Texas, and what we do for each other matters. So now, we're happy to, if there's a few questions, to take a few questions.

Start over here. Start over here, then we'll go here.

Yeah. Has this impacted any security plans for South by Southwest? It has not. We have a press conference, I believe, next Thursday for our Spring festival season. And certainly, as we look at Austin and what makes Austin so great are those events. We are a major city police department, and we go in best practices. I feel confident that the resources we have in play, South by Southwest will continue on, and it will be a safe festival season.

Do we know how the suspect acquired these guns, and whether they were acquired legally? The guns were acquired legally. I believe, in 2017, out of San Antonio, they were purchased.

Can you tell us more about the victims? I think you said Savitha Shan and Ryder Harrison. Ryder Harrington, yes.

OK. Can you tell us more? Are they UT students? I think Ryder is a Texas Tech student. I don't know as far as what school they went to. That is certainly something that we can look into. But they were young. I believe Ryder was maybe 22, and Savitha, 24 or 20, respectively. Yeah.

Are you able to share any details about the warrants that were executed yesterday in Del Valley and in Pflugerville? So anytime that you're doing an investigation like this, it's going to lead to search warrants. And so those warrants were based off information of where this person lived, addresses where he congregated, and evidence was taken from that.

There was a video circulating on social media of an autonomous vehicle blocking emergency services near the scene on Sunday. Can you guys talk about the situation, what you encountered, and how you were assessing the scene and transporting victims? Yeah, I think that's something-- I don't know if, Rob, if you wanted to address it. Rob Luckritz, Chief of Austin, Travis County EMS. EMS, as well as our fellow Public Safety partners, work very closely with the autonomous vehicle vendors that operate here in the city of Austin. We had more than 20 assets, resources that responded to this event. As was said at an earlier press conference, we were on scene within 57 seconds. And so, in the grand scheme of the impact on the overall incident, we don't believe it had any impact on patient outcomes. I will say that we're already in touch with Waymo and the autonomous vehicles to give them our concerns and work with them in order to try to address this moving forward.

If you guys could raise your hands, please. We'll go here, then Jamal.

And for the chief and for Agent Doran, can you explain what more you've learned about possible motive? And I think it was reported that the suspect had a shirt underneath the sweatshirt that showed an Iranian flag. Is there a direct connection to the war in Iran with the shooting here? So I think for our purposes, as we're looking at the totality of this and certainly as a police chief, and we're coming in and we're getting this information and we see those indicators, we see the second shirt with the Iran, the picture of the shah on that T-shirt, as well. We're thinking about events and what's occurring in the country, as well. And so, in addition to the fact that this was a huge, complex scene, we're calling in those federal partners to take a look at that, as well. And so again, the motives, all of those things, that's what this investigation is about right now.

Jamal.

I don't mind. Oh, sure. Go ahead. Go right ahead. Thank you. So I'll add on to that, but first, I just want to also express our regards to the victims, the victims' families, those impacted by this tragic event. It's not just those that were injured or killed, but obviously those that witnessed it are going to be forever impacted. And so, just let them know we stand with you, and our thoughts are with you. With regards to the question, yes, our ultimate goal in everything we do is to determine the motive. We're looking for connections that he possibly had, witnesses, as the chief mentioned. We are pouring through thousands of hours of video. We have massive amounts of both digital and physical evidence. And this is an around-the-clock, 24/7 hour investigation at this point. And any declarations on what led to that motive would be premature. We want to make sure that we have our facts 100% correct or as close to or at least we've tracked down every possible lead that we can because that's what we owe to the victims. That's what you guys want answers for, but more importantly, we owe that to the victims and their families to be right. So we don't want to speculate or make any guesses at this stage of the investigation as to what that motive ultimately was.

We'll go Jamal.

To maybe piggyback off of that, are you all looking into anyone else maybe connected with the suspect at this time, or is there anything else about the suspect that you can share? Again, we will have some criminal history, some background, that type of thing on Thursday when we address the officer-involved shooting. But as far as anyone else, that's all part of what that investigation is currently.

Given some of his interactions with your agency previously, some of the social media posts attributed to him, had your agency or any agency identified him as a potential concern or a threat before this? We have not at the Austin Police Department. No.

No, he was not previously on our radar.

Agent Doran, I had a question for you. Yesterday, you mentioned that there was this potential nexus to terrorism that was being investigated. Can you tell us what that means in regular words, and also, what we've learned about that. So any act of targeted violence, which is what this was, we're going to pursue all investigative lines, right? And that is certainly one of them, along with multiple other avenues of where this could go. It's always very difficult to determine what's in an individual's mind that leads them to commit this type of violence. And so we will continue to, I said, pour through the evidence, talk to witnesses, talk to friends, talk to associates that knew this person, obviously tracking movement leading up to and on the night of the event and also going back as far back as we can trace them. That's what the FBI does, and we're doing that in lockstep with our partners. And we will continue to do that until we get that answer to determine what that ultimate motivation was.

We'll take two or three more questions. We're going to start in the back here, and then we'll go to Angela, and end with Dante.

Thank you. For either the chief or Special Agent Doran, how closely are you working with other major cities, like the NYPD, the LAPD? We know New York put out a statement saying that they saw what happened in Austin, and they're taking it seriously, and it has put them on high alert. Are you talking to other cities? Can you tell me a little bit about that? Yeah, I think, being part of the Major City Chiefs Association, those are in contact with all of those chiefs and what's going on. And everybody better be on heightened alert. I mean, this is what happens across the country. We all need to be aware of. And certainly, as major cities, you look at best practices, and you look at the way you keep people safe. That's absolutely important. And there's probably not a police chief across this country that's not talking to one-- to someone.

Angela and Dante, you'll have the final question.

We have been listening to officials in Austin, Texas, update us on the shooting that happened a little after 1:30 in the morning on Sunday at Buford's, which is a bar in Austin's Sixth Street entertainment district near UT Austin. Police say that they were on scene within 57 seconds, and that this was a traumatic moment in their city. There are more than 150 witnesses to this. And so they are still investigating, and they won't speculate on a motive. But they did say the suspect was not previously on law enforcement's radar. We do know that sources told CBS News, the gunman was driving around in an SUV circling the block when he began shooting from the vehicle's open window at people outdoors. And he then exited the vehicle and was shooting as he walked up the street and was ultimately killed by police. We also obtained a photo of the gunman, who was wearing a sweatshirt that said "Property of Allah" during attack, according to two sources familiar, and also a shirt, an article of clothing he was wearing with a design similar to the Iranian flag. We're going to continue to monitor this and bring you any updates as they come.