Six dead, three injured in Texas shootings that may be connected, police say

(AUSTIN, Texas) –Police in Texas said they were investigating possible connections between a series of shootings in Austin and a fatal shooting near San Antonio that left six dead in total and injured several others on Tuesday.

A suspect in his 30s was booked into the Travis County Jail and charged with capital murder on Tuesday night, the Austin Police Department said. His name has not been released. Additional charges are pending, officials said.

Austin officers said they were investigating whether the suspect had been involved in shootings at four locations throughout the city that left four dead and three injured on Tuesday. Two of the injured were police officers, law enforcement said.

Law enforcement officials in Bexar County also said they were also investigating whether another shooting that left two dead in a “grisly” crime scene near San Antonio was connected.

The series of shootings in Austin began at about 10:43 a.m. on Tuesday, when a resource officer was shot and injured near Northeast Early College High School, the Austin Police Department said.

About two hours later, a man and a woman were fatally shot near Shadywood Drive on Austin’s south side, police said.

Officers then responded to a possible burglary just before 6 p.m. on Tuesday near the 5300 block of Austral Loop. Police and the suspect fired at each other, and one of the responding officers was hit multiple times, police said. The officer was later transferred to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, officials said.

The suspect then allegedly led officers in a high-speed pursuit that ended in a crash of the vehicle the suspect was driving, police said. The man was arrested with a firearm in his possession, police said.

While the pursuit was in progress, officers went inside the residence that was allegedly burglarized on Austral Loop and discovered two people dead from fatal gunshot wounds, officials said.

Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said that he was contacted by Austin police officers on Tuesday evening and was told that the suspect in custody for the Austin shootings had a connection to a residence in San Antonio.

When deputies arrived at that residence, they forced entry and found two additional people, believed to be in either their 40s or 50s, with fatal gunshot wounds, police said. The bodies were wedged inside a very small room and officials described the scene as “grisly.”

The sheriff said it wasn’t yet clear if the suspect had any connection to the people found dead in the house. He said officials believed the killings near San Antonio happened first and then the suspect went to Austin.