APD: Officer Kills Man in North Austin

Police are responding to an officer-involved shooting that left one resident dead this morning, according to Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo.

Acevedo said that police dispatchers received a call for service this morning at 7:23am from a male resident in the 10000 block of Lanshire Drive in North Austin, near the intersection of Kramer Lane and Metric Blvd. The caller told dispatchers that he had just shot a pit bull in his backyard. En route, police asked dispatchers to contact the man to ask him to leave his firearms inside the house and to meet officers in his front yard. Acevedo said the man refused and when police arrived he was in the yard with a pistol tucked into his waistband. Police asked for permission to remove his pistol while they talked about what happened with the dog; the man again said no. A "brief struggle" ensued, and the man pulled his pistol, aiming it at the officer, Acevedo said. "In fear of his life," at 7:32am the officer fired at the man. Twelve minutes later he was pronounced dead by EMS.

Police have not yet released the name of the man or the officers involved; per policy, the officer who fired his weapon, who has been with the department just under three years, has been placed on administrative leave, pending both a criminal and administrative inquiry into the shooting.

Acevedo said the officer is having a hard time and is "torn up" by the shooting. "I just wish people could really see what happens to these officers when these shootings happen," he said.

Acevedo said a dog, not the victim's, was found dead in the backyard; police have not determined whether the dog belonged to a neighbor or was a stray, he said.

Police do have audio, and some video, of the incident as well as the eyewitness accounts of two neighbors who "witnessed the actual" shooting and events leading up to it, Acevedo said.