Three suspects, including two teenagers, committed a staggering 12 shootings in the Austin area over the weekend. The Texas governor wants to see them behind bars for a long time, instead of released as “misguided minors” to shoot more people.
The 15-year-old stole his gun on Saturday from the exact same store where the 17-year-old accomplice had already stolen a firearm. There was a warrant out for the latter’s arrest over the theft. ABC7 KATV did not provide names for any of the suspects, but merely said that the third suspect fled the vehicle when officers stopped it to arrest the teenagers. Officers were pursuing the vehicle when whoever was driving cut across a field and ended up crashing the vehicle, after which all three criminals inside fled on foot, though the officers eventually nabbed them all.
Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis told the local press about the suspects and that they had injured four people in the shootings. The teenage criminals are in juvenile detention at the moment.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott seemingly argued for adult charges against the criminals in his statement on their arrest. “These kids are serial criminals with a callous disregard for life. If they are ever released from jail they will surely harm again,” he insisted. “Austin PD, Travis Co. Sheriff Office & Manor PD did their job. Texas Dept. of Public Safety aided them. The DA & Court must do their job and keep these criminals behind bars.”
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Manor Police Chief Ryan Phipps and his man were the ones who tracked down the vehicle and caught the suspects.
Phipps said the search area is large, spanning multiple neighborhoods, and authorities deployed helicopters and drones to locate the third individual…which involved nearly 200 officers including canine, SWAT, helicopter, and drone support.
The 19-hour spree began late Saturday afternoon, with the first calls coming in around 3:45 p.m. Saturday, Davis said. The first shooting happened in the 6700 block of Wentworth Drive in east Austin, where the suspect fired toward Fire Station 26.
The shootings paused overnight before resuming Sunday morning at 8:47 a.m., when a man walking his dog was shot in the back near the intersection of Janes Ranch Road and Ballydawn Drive in southeast Austin. Police then began connecting the incidents.
Then yet another shooting happened in the Southwest Austin with Fire Station 32 as the target. Finally, the last shooting occurred close to the intersection of Burton Drive and Oltorf Street. The shooters injured one victim, and South Austin Hospital provided treatment for the wounded individual.
Abbott is right to be concerned that the teenage criminals could receive relatively light sentences and be out on the streets again in just a few years. This is especially true since Democrats run the city of Austin. But if people as young as 15 or 17 could deliberately steal firearms in order to commit a dozen shootings, randomly targeting people they have never seen and roving aimlessly across a wide area to terrorize as many strangers as possible, those criminals are almost certainly not going to reform in a few years of juvenile detention.
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