Gunman kills 3, including a child, at Target store in Austin, Texas

A gunman killed three people who were outside a Target store in Austin, Texas, on Monday afternoon, and then stole a succession of cars before he was apprehended, local police officials said.

Two of the victims, one adult and one child, were pronounced dead at the scene, shortly after emergency responders arrived around 2:20 p.m. Central time. A third person, an adult, was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. A fourth person had minor medical complaints, not caused by traumatic injuries, according to emergency responders.

Police said the shooter, a 32-year-old man, then hijacked a car from the parking lot, crashed it, and stole another car. Austin police officers found him in South Austin and took him into custody after shocking him with a stun gun. Among the individuals shot was the driver of the car the gunman stole first, police said.

The man, whose name has not been released, had a history of mental health problems and has previously been placed on emergency holds, according to Lisa Davis, chief of the Austin Police Department. Such holds typically occur when individuals face a mental health crisis and pose a risk to themselves or others.

“This is a very sad day for Austin, a very sad day for us all,” Davis said.

The shooting was the third time in two weeks that a man whom authorities described as having a history of mental health problems opened fire in a public place, with fatal consequences.

Three days before the Austin shooting, a 30-year-old man opened fire at the Atlanta headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, leaving a police officer dead and many public health workers rattled. The gunman, who also died, apparently targeted the CDC because he believed the Covid-19 vaccine had made him ill. He may have been suicidal, according to his family members.

And last month in New York, a gunman stormed into a midtown Manhattan office building, where he shot and killed four people and seriously wounded a fifth.

The gunman had a documented mental health history and appeared to be targeting the headquarters of the National Football League. In a note found by the police, the gunman, a former high school football player, accused the NFL of concealing the danger of the sport in favor of profits. In that note, the gunman referred to chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease known as CTE that is associated with repeated blows to the head. It is not clear whether the gunman suffered from the disease, which can be confirmed only through an autopsy.

Authorities said they did not know the motive for the Austin attack.

Marco Torres, 20, a Target employee who handles online orders, said he had been working inside the store when he heard two gunshots from outside.

“I heard the gunshots loud and clear,” he said. “At first, I thought it was a huge prank.

Torres then ran toward the front of the store “to see what was going on,” he said. As employees and shoppers realised the gravity of the situation, he said, those inside began “running for their lives” toward the rear exits.

In a statement on social media, Austin Mayor Kirk Watson said an investigation was ongoing.

“What I’ll say is that this was a sickening, cowardly act of violence,” Watson wrote.

State Sen. Sarah Eckhardt, a Democrat whose district includes most of Austin, said in a statement the shooting had occurred minutes away from a high school.

“While crime is down across our county, our state and our country,” she wrote, “mass shootings have become our national nightmare played out in communities every day.”

Advocacy groups and some Democratic lawmakers have argued the attacks should lead lawmakers to enact stricter gun control measures.

Nadia Barbot, a volunteer with the Texas chapter of Moms Demand Action, a nonprofit focused on ending gun violence, said in a statement that people in Texas “live with the fear of being shot.”

“We deserve to feel safety in our communities,” Barbot said, “and it’s far past time our lawmakers step up to prioritise safety.”