AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A gunman wearing dresses with an Iranian flag kind and the phrases “Property of Allah” killed two of us and wounded 14 early Sunday at a Texas bar, a law enforcement authentic told The Associated Press. The FBI is investigating the taking pictures, which erupted a day after the U.S. and Israel launched an assault on Iran, as a skill act of terrorism.
Police in Austin shot and killed the gunman, who faded each and each a pistol and a rifle to befriend out the assault, police said.
The taking pictures took predicament birth air Buford’s Yard Beer Garden appropriate sooner than 2 a.m. along Sixth Avenue, a nightlife destination stuffed with bars and tune clubs and ideally suited just a few miles (kilometers) from the University of Texas at Austin.
Nathan Comeaux, a 22-year-dilapidated senior, had spent the evening there with pals and said the bar used to be “stout of faculty students, potentially largely UT youth, shoulder to shoulder, tons of appropriate having fun with their nights.”
The suspect drove past the bar lots of times sooner than stopping and taking pictures from the window of his SUV at of us on a patio and in front of the bar, per Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis.
He then parked, purchased out with a rifle and began taking pictures at of us walking along the avenue sooner than officers rushed to the intersection and shot him, Davis said. Three of the injured were in serious situation Sunday morning, she said.
AP AUDIO: FBI investigates Texas bar taking pictures that killed 2 and wounded 14 as that that you just can well perchance doubtless accept as true with terrorist act
AP correspondent Haya Panjwani reports on a lethal Texas bar taking pictures.
The gunman used to be acknowledged as 53-year-dilapidated Ndiaga Diagne, the Division of Place of initiating Safety said in a assertion.
A pupil witnesses the gunfire
Comeaux had left the bar to snatch pizza at a meals truck across the avenue about 10 minutes sooner than the first gunshots were fired. No one spherical the pizza truck understood what used to be going down, he said, with some thinking the noise used to be fireworks or a loud motorcycle.
Comeaux said he hid behind a bench for approximately a minute sooner than getting out, and he seen law enforcement officials working in direction of the scene. He pulled out his phone to birth recording. That’s when more shots rang out. Comeaux said he seen the suspect flip his gun on police sooner than officers shot him.
He said he knows somebody who used to be shot and guessed that many other UT students carry out as properly.
“The UT neighborhood has positively been majorly plagued by this,” he said.
FBI says assault will be terrorism
Authorities haven’t provided a favorable motive for the attacks but came upon “indicators” on the gunman and in his car leading them to search out into the opportunity of terrorism, said Alex Doran, the acting agent responsible of the FBI’s San Antonio office.
“It’s indifferent too early to make a resolution on that,” Doran said Sunday morning.
Diagne first entered the usin 2000 on a B-2 tourist visa and grew to become a proper permanent resident six years later after marrying a U.S. citizen, per DHS. He grew to become a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2013, the department said. Diagne used to be initially from Senegal, per more than one of us briefed on the investigation who spoke on the situation of anonymity because they were no longer licensed to publicly discuss about the investigation.
The White Dwelling said President Donald Trump had been briefed on the taking pictures.
Texas officials weigh in
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott warned that the affirm would reply aggressively to somebody making an try to “use the recent struggle in the Heart East to threaten Texas.”
University of Texas at Austin President Jim Davis said on social media that some of these affected included “participants of our Longhorn family.”
“Our prayers are with the victims and all these impacted,” said university President Jim Davis.
The leisure district has a heavy police presence on weekends, and officers were in a position to confront the gunman inner a minute of the first name for befriend, Davis said.
Austin Mayor Kirk Watson praised the short response by police and rescuers.
“They positively saved lives,” he said.
The scene the next evening used to be unexcited in the in general bustling leisure district amid downtown Austin’s hills and vintage properties, including that of the governor, whose predicament is appropriate blocks away.
Police had taped off lots of sq. blocks spherical Sixth Avenue, whereas native police and federal brokers, including ATF brokers were at the positioning, per Austin police serving as sentries.
Unmarked law enforcement autos were coming and going, as were firetrucks. Bystanders and news journalists and camera crews stood at the corners birth air the yellow tape, making an try to bring collectively a gape of the direct.
There had been at the very least two other excessive-profile shootings in Austin’s Sixth Avenue leisure district inner the past 5 years, including one in the summertime of 2021 that left 14 of us wounded. Even though this weekend’s taking pictures doesn’t meet the definition of a mass killing, there had been 5 of these thus a long way this year.
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This yarn has been corrected to claim that Diagne came to the United States in 2000, no longer 2006. An AP source briefed on the investigation but no longer licensed to chat about it publicly initially said he arrived in 2006. The Division of Place of initiating Safety later said he came in 2000.
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Seewer reported from Toledo, Ohio; and Durkin Richer from Washington and Ronayne from Sacramento, California. Associated Press writers Thomas Beaumont in Austin, Rebecca Santana and Eric Tucker in Washington and Olivia Diaz in Richmond, Virginia, contributed. ___ Diaz is a corps member for The Associated Press/Account for The united states Statehouse News Initiative. Account for The united states is a nonprofit national service program that locations journalists in native newsrooms to document on undercovered problems.
