A demonstrator who was shot dead in Austin, Texas, on Saturday night may have pointed a rifle he was holding at a driver before the driver fired a handgun.
The deceased was identified as Garrett Foster, 28.
Austin Police Chief Brian Manley said the male driver told police officers that he turned onto a street when he was blocked by demonstrators, who began beating on the vehicle while Foster pointed an AK-47 type assault rifle at him.
“His account is that Mr. Foster pointed the weapon directly at him, and he fired his handgun at Mr. Foster,” Manley told reporters in a virtual briefing.
The driver then drove away from the scene, before pulling over, calling 911, and reporting what he had done.
“The caller stated that he had shot someone who had approached the driver’s window of their vehicle and pointed a rifle at them,” Manley said.
Police officers monitoring the march moved through the crowd at 9:51 p.m., after hearing two separate volleys of gunfire. They located Foster, who suffered multiple gunshot wounds, and attempted to resuscitate him.
Foster was rushed to a nearby hospital but pronounced dead 34 minutes after the shots rang out.
The second volley of gunfire came from another person in the crowd, police said.
That person reported hearing the gunshots and saw the driver fleeing, prompting them to pull out their concealed handgun and fire shots at the vehicle.
That shooter and the driver were taken to a police station and interviewed by homicide detectives. They were both released, pending an ongoing investigation.
The guns carried by the driver, Foster, and the other person were secured as evidence, as was the driver’s vehicle.
Detectives are reviewing witness statements, photographs, and video footage to determine exactly what happened. Police officials are coordinating with prosecutors. The Travis County Medical Examiner’s Office is planning to conduct an autopsy to determine exactly how Foster died.
Anyone with photographs or video of the incident should contact the police.
“It is very important, if you have video, if you have pictures, if you have information, that you come forward and provide that to us, so that will be included in this ongoing investigation,” Manley said.
Foster’s death was the 28th homicide in Austin this year, an increase of well over 70 percent from this point last year, police officials said. Robberies and aggravated assaults are also up. Police officers are finding it challenging to combat crime at current staffing levels. Demonstrators want to slash funding to the police department.
Foster’s mother, Sheila Foster, provided a different account of what happened on Saturday.
She said her son had attended dozens of demonstrations with his fiancee, Whitney Mitchell, a quadruple amputee. And she claimed to ABC’s “Good Morning America” that Foster was pushing Mitchell’s wheelchair in the moments before the shooting.
“And this gentleman got out of his car and started firing shots, and my son was shot three times,” she said.
Foster was briefly interviewed by a journalist before the shooting.
Foster said he was carrying an AK-47 because “they don’t let us march in the streets anymore, so I gotta to practice some of our rights.”
He said he wouldn’t use the weapon against the police because he would die if he did so. “I think all the people that hate us and wanna say [expletive] to us are too big of [expletive] to stop and actually do anything about it,” he added.
Anna Mayo, Foster’s sister, told the Austin-American Statesman that her brother “would have never, ever pointed a gun at somebody.”
“He always carried his guns with him. He had a license to carry in Texas—we’re an open carry state. He always would exercise his right to carry, but he would never threaten somebody. He was one of the most kindhearted people—that was the whole reason he was out there,” she said.
Demonstrators affiliated with Black Lives Matter gathered in Austin on July 25 and blocked traffic. At several points, they stopped and various people spoke.
One man said the group was not part of Antifa, a far-left anarcho-communist group.
“This is [expletive] Black Lives Matter,” he said. “I don’t want to focus on defunding [the police]. I don’t want to focus on gentrification. It’s all about Black Lives Matter,” he added later.
From The Epoch Times
