A police officer was shot in the hand after a driver pulled a gun during a routine traffic stop, but still managed to return fire, killing two suspects and wounding a third in San Antonio, Texas.
The officer pulled a truck over Friday afternoon and had ‘casual conversation’ for a couple minutes with the driver, said San Antonio Police Chief William McManus, who reviewed the officer’s body camera.
Then the driver pulled out a gun and fired multiple times, the chief said.
One bullet hit the officer in the hand and another hit his radio. The officer retreated and returned fire, killing the driver and passenger, both men.
Chief William McManus said a routine traffic stop escalated without warning into a gun battle that left a San Antonio police officer injured, two suspects dead and a third suspect in the hospital.
Law enforcement are trying to understand why the driver pulled a gun on the San Antonio police officer during a ‘casual conversation’ as part of a ‘routine’ traffic stop.
‘The officer is very, very lucky to be alive at those close range having been shot in the hand and not somewhere else more vital,’ Chief McManus said.
A third passenger, a woman, was shot in upper torso and was rushed to an area hospital, McManus said.
‘He was an officer patrolling here, routine traffic stop, which turned out to be not so routine after all,’ McManus said.
‘The officer is very, very lucky to be alive at those close range having been shot in the hand and not somewhere else more vital.’
The driver or passengers weren’t making any motions with their hands, and no one made any excited movements or raised their voices, said McManus, adding he doesn’t know why the driver resorted to violence.
The police officer’s identity wasn’t revealed, but McManus said he’s a five-year veteran of the force and is recovering in the hospital.
He’s been placed on administrative leave, according to the San Antonio Police Department.
Pictured is the one suspect in the car who survived. She was shot during the gun battle in the upper torso. Police didn’t release her identity.
San Antonio police are baffled by what prompted the shooting.
Both men who were killed appeared to be in their mid 20s, the chief said.
San Antonio police said their names will be released after the medical examiner makes positive identifications of both men.
Police said the third victim, a 22-year-old woman, was graved by a bullet, and her injuries aren’t life threatening.
The San Antonio Police Department Shooting Team and Internal Affairs will conduct separate, but concurrent investigations, per department protocols.
The case will then be forwarded to the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office for an independent review.
This is San Antonio’s second gunfire exchange involving police in two days.
On Thursday, a gunman with ‘mental issues’ was shot and killed by police after he drove up to the terminal of San Antonio International Airport and open fired.
‘Who needs a gun that fires 100 rounds?’: Biden says it’s a ‘national embarrassment’ the Senate won’t act on gun legislation
President Joe Biden on Friday demanded an end to mass shootings and called it a ‘national embarrassment’ that the Senate won’t act on House-passed gun control legislation.
Speaking at a brief White House press conference on a day when he once again ordered flags at half staff in tribute to those lost in a mass shooting event, Biden defended his record and his effort, saying he ‘strongly’ supports background check legislation.
‘I continue, and I strongly, strongly urge my Republican friends in the Congress who have refused to bring up the House passed bill to bring it up now,’ he intoned.
‘Who in God’s name needs a weapon that can hold 100 rounds or 40 rounds, or 20 rounds?’ Biden asked, calling it ‘just wrong.’
President Joe Biden called it a ‘national embarrassment’ that the Senate won’t act on gun legislation after a series of mass shootings
‘This has to end. It’s a national embarrassment. It is a national embarrassment what’s going on. And it’s not only these mass shootings that are occurring every single day. Every single day. There’s a mass shooting this in the United States if you count all those who are killed out in the streets of our cities and our rural areas. It’s a national embarrassment and must come to an end,’ Biden said.
Biden fielded a question about how he selected his priorities, at an event alongside the Japanese prime minister, amid Biden’s big push for infrastructure.
‘I’ve never not prioritized this, no one has worked harder to deal with violence, used by individuals using weapons and I have,’ said Biden, talking up his work as a legislator that has long stymied and often divided Democrats and drawn fierce Republican opposition.
‘I strongly support, I strongly support the universal background checks, which I continue to push. The Congress has to step up and act, the Senate has to act, and I strongly support … have never stopped supporting the ban on assault weapons and magazines and hold more than 10 bullets.’
He said he is able to work on the pandemic and the economy even while pushing the measures.
‘But it’s not a question of my been able to set the agenda in the Senate as to what they will move to first,’ Biden said.
Then he spoke to gun owners.
‘And one last thing, the folks who own weapons, the folks who own guns, they support universal background checks, the majority of them think we should not be selling assault weapons. Who in God’s name needs a weapon that can hold 100 rounds or 40 rounds, or 20 rounds?’
‘And I’m not going to give up till is done,’ he vowed.
Biden ordered flags lowered to half-staff at the White House and public buildings Friday following yet another mass shooting event in the country – this time at an Indiana FedEx facility.
The president said he and Vice President Kamala Harris have been briefed by their security team on the incident ‘where a lone gunman murdered eight people and wounded several more in the dark of night.’
His statement comes after he has already ordered flags at half staff in recent weeks for prior mass shootings in Atlanta and Colorado, and amid an ongoing impasse in Congress that has prevented a legislative response.
President Joe Biden ordered flags lowered to half-staff at the White House and public buildings Friday following yet another mass shooting event in the country – this time at an Indiana FedEx facility
‘Gun violence is an epidemic in America. But we should not accept it. We must act,’ he said, just days after announcing executive actions in the wake of the earlier shootings.
‘Today’s briefing is just the latest in a string of tragedies, following closely after gunmen firing bullets in broad day light at spas in and around Atlanta, Georgia, a grocery store in Boulder, Colorado, a home in Rock Hill, South Carolina, and so many other shootings,’ wrote Biden.
‘While we await critical details about the shooting, its motivation, and other key information, once again, I have the solemn duty of ordering the flag lowered at half-staff at the White House, public buildings and grounds, and military posts and embassies, just two weeks after I gave the last such order,’ he wrote.
‘It’s a mass shooting just a week after we met, in the Rose Garden, with families who lost children and dear friends as bullets pierced their bodies and souls in schools, a night club, in a car at a gas station, and a town meeting at a grocery store. And it came just the night before [the] 14th anniversary of the shooting at Virginia Tech, in which a gunman murdered 32 people,’ he continued.