AUSTIN, Texas – A man wearing a ski mask opened fire with an AK-47 inside a University of Texas library yesterday morning, then fatally shot himself, police said.
Police ended their search for a possible second suspect early in the afternoon, saying authorities believed the gunman was a university student and that he had acted alone. No other injuries were reported.
The nearly 50 000-student campus – whose clocktower was the site of one of the nation’s deadliest shooting rampages four decades ago – had been on lockdown while officers with bomb-sniffing dogs carried out a building-by-building manhunt.
Campus police spokeswoman Rhonda Weldon said a man fired an automatic weapon on the sixth floor of the Perry-Castaneda Library, then shot himself dead. Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo said the weapon was an AK-47.
Acevedo said police were investigating what he described as a second crime scene outside the library where shots also were fired.
Campus police Chief Robert Dahlstrom said officials later ruled out the possibility of a second shooter, explaining the initial confusion came about because the gunman had fired shots in multiple locations. He said the suspect wore dark clothes and a ski mask.
Randall Wilhite, an adjunct law professor at the university, said he was driving to class when he saw “students start scrambling behind wastebaskets, trees and monuments,” and then a young man carrying an assault rifle sprinting along the street.
“He was running right in front of me . . . and he shot what I thought were three more shots . . . not at me. In my direction, but not at me, clearly not at me,” Wilhite said. (AP)
