A video shared online showed a self-driving Waymo vehicle blocking emergency vehicles responding to the scene of the mass shooting at a popular downtown Austin, Texas, bar early Sunday (March 1) morning.
Matthew Turnage was waiting on his Uber ride at around 2:00 a.m. when he filmed the vehicle “stuck” on West 6th Street and Nueces Street, just two minutes away from the scene outside Buford’s Backyard Beer Garden where two people were killed and 14 others were wounded, KXAN reports.
“We left a club at 2 a.m. and were walking to get a ride home. We just so happened to get a Waymo car from Uber, and when we found the car, it was trying to pick us up but got stuck in the middle of the street and blocked emergency vehicles for a couple of minutes,” Turnage said.
The Waymo, which operates without a driver, was idle and perpendicular across the intersection as an ambulance waited for it to move before slowing inching upward and turning into what appeared to be a parking garage after the ambulance had already gone in reverse down an alternate route.
The gunman in the shooting was identified as Ndianga Diagne, and the FBI is now investigating the incident as a potential act of terrorism. Diagne was killed minutes after initially opening fire, having traded shots with police, the New York Post reports.
Alex Doran, a special agent with the FBI’s San Antonio field office, had previously told reporters that “there were indicators that on the subject and in his vehicle that indicate potential terrorism.”
“Again, it’s still too early to make a determination on that,” he said.
A video surfaced showing Diagne holding a rifle and wearing a sweatshirt that said “Property of Allah.” Sources who spoke to the New York Post claimed that a Quran and clothing described as Islamic garb were found inside the vehicle.
Authorities have clarified that two people were killed and several injured during the shooting after previous varying reports on the death toll. The Austin police department had previously confirmed that the incident took place “along West Sixth Street” and that “the suspect has been shot by police.”
Officers responded to reports of a man opening fire at Buford’s Bar. Austin Police Department Chief Lisa Davis said three officers shot back toward the suspect, who was pronounced dead at the scene. Davis said that authorities were able to respond to the area quickly because of customary staging over on East Sixth Street, with ATCEMS Chief Robert Luckritz confirming that medics were present within 57 seconds of receiving the call at 1:59 a.m. local time.
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