An officer-involved shooting in Austin, Texas, left a man dead on Saturday after police confronted him during a foot chase, according to Austin Police. Authorities said officers opened fire and struck the individual, who was later pronounced dead, in an encounter that has become the subject of two separate investigations as the department works to piece together exactly what happened during the confrontation.
According to Austin Police, the man had been reported to be in possession of a firearm earlier in the day, and officers again saw him with a firearm during the encounter. The situation escalated into a short foot chase, during which officers continued to give the individual commands as they pursued him, trying to bring the fast-moving confrontation under control.
According to the account, officers repeatedly ordered the man to stop and to drop the firearm. The subject, police said, refused to stop and refused to drop the weapon, continuing to move away from officers even as they closed the distance during the pursuit, leaving the officers following him with their commands going unheeded.
According to Austin Police, the officers were ultimately faced with a situation in which they fired rounds, striking the subject. Officers provided medical aid shortly afterward, but the individual was pronounced deceased from those wounds, an outcome that a department official described as one that they never want to see at the end of such an encounter.
Police said more than one officer had opened fire. According to Austin Police, two officers were involved in the shooting and multiple rounds were discharged, although officials stressed that it remained very early in the investigation and said they could not yet detail the precise sequence of events or the exact number of shots that were fired.
According to Austin Police, the case will be examined through two separate tracks: an administrative investigation conducted in conjunction with the city's police oversight, and a criminal investigation led by the department's Special Investigations Unit together with the Travis County District Attorney's Office. Officials said they expected to release additional information and video in the near future.
According to Austin Police, key details about the man remained unconfirmed in the immediate aftermath. Officials said they did not have a confirmed identification of the individual or information about his housing status, and cautioned that the investigation was in its earliest stages as they continued to gather evidence and prepare a fuller account of the shooting.