People in parts of Austin were told Wednesday morning just after 6:30 that a man who shot a police officer and another person near Zilker Park was no longer a threat.
But, he was. The man was still at-large just outside an elementary school – armed and on the run from police.
The Austin Police Department says it's looking into why the shelter-in-place order, which was sent via text to more than 178,000 Austinites, was canceled. The incident highlights a lack of communication between the department and Austin residents.
At a news conference Wednesday, Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis said she wants to know why people, who were told to lockdown just before 5:30 Wednesday morning, were given the all-clear an hour later when the shooter was still on the run.
“I want to get to the bottom of why it was changed, how it was changed, how it happened, and again, ensure that it does not happen again," she said to reporters. "I am just as curious as you."
After shooting an APD officer and critically injuring another person, the man left the scene near Zilker Park to Barton Hills Elementary School.
Sarah Shapiro, whose children attend nearby Zilker Elementary, said she got a text from AISD "literally three minutes" after she sent her kids off to school that the area wasn't safe, that the lockdown was still in place.
Shapiro wants to know why the Austin Police Department didn't convey the potential threat to the school district and parents.
"They allowed kids to ... be in these buildings when there's an active manhunt going on. That's criminal," she said. "Kids could have been very hurt. It could have gone much, much worse."
Austin ISD has not responded to repeated requests for comment about the incident and parents' concerns about communication.
Martin Ritchey, director of Homeland Security for the Capital Area Council of Governments, manages the entire text-based system for emergency alerts in Central Texas, known as Warn Central Texas. He told KUT News that APD would be the only agency with the permission to cancel the alert.
"In this particular case, all of these messages were sent by APD," Ritchey said.
He adds, confusion aside, the incident highlights the effectiveness of the emergency communication system. It's not always going to be perfect, he said, but it's the quickest way to warn people of potential danger, whether it be flooding or a boil-water notice or an active shooter.
"We're always looking for feedback from the community to help us get there," Ritchey said. "And sometimes we have to listen to the hard parts ... [and] some of the issues that must be overcome. We continue to work with all our partners that send messages to advise them on what the best strategy is."
It's not the first time authorities have stumbled with emergency notifications in Central Texas. APD didn't notify residents of an active shooter in the Circle C neighborhood in 2023, and this summer some Travis County residents didn't get a heads-up ahead of dangerous flooding.
And, Ritchey points out, notification fatigue is another problem. He points to the Blue Alert sent out to millions of Texans last year after a police officer was shot in the Texas Panhandle. But this incident highlights the need to opt-in to text alerts, Ritchey said. A suspect was apprehended after he was shot in a Barton Hills home, and the homeowner told police he wouldn't have been in the loop if not for the notification.
"People took their safety and personal safety and family safety into their own hands by listening to the communication from law enforcement and hunkering down," Ritchey said. "And this is what this is what the system is designed for."
KUT News' Katy McAfee contributed to this story.
