Police respond to reports of a mass shooting on west 6th street in Downtown Austin, Texas on Sunday, March 1, 2026.
Aaron E. Martinez/Austin American-Statesman
When shots rang out on West Sixth Street early Sunday, Austin police officers and medics arrived at Buford’s bar in 57 seconds — unusually fast for a police department often criticized for its slow response times.
City leaders praised the swift response: “I’m very thankful for the speed with which our officials responded to this,” Mayor Kirk Watson said shortly after the incident. “I don’t think there’s any question: It saved lives.”
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Officials said several factors helped the Austin Police Department respond within seconds to the mass shooting that killed two and injured 14 others. At a Monday news conference, Chief Lisa Davis highlighted a coordinated partnership between police, the Austin Fire Department and Austin-Travis County EMS that pairs officers with paramedics to quickly address life-threatening emergencies.
Austin police established the joint Counter Assault Strike Teams, known as CAST units, after a 2010 incident in which a 19-year-old gunman on the University of Texas campus fired several rounds from an AK-47 before turning the weapon on himself. The specially trained teams respond to active-shooter situations and other high-risk, violent incidents. Davis said one of the units is assigned every weekend to the downtown entertainment district to ensure a rapid first-responder presence in a critical situation.
“They sit in this very room every Friday, Saturday and Sunday night to address potential threat concerns from our entertainment areas,” Davis said at the news conference on the fourth floor of police headquarters. “Where there are large crowds, we are there and prepared.”
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Austin Police Association President Michael Bullock said the joint teams make it possible for officers to escort paramedics into dangerous situations, helping injured people receive advanced medical treatment faster.
Police Chief Lisa Davis addresses the press, alongside Mayor Kirk Watson, regarding the West 6th Street mass shooting while at the Austin Police Department Headquarters in Austin Monday, March 2, 2026.
Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman
“We can take paramedics into active scenes because they know that we’re there to keep them safe and that means we can get advanced life-saving care to people who are injured a lot sooner,” he said.
EMS Chief Robert Luckritz said at a Sunday morning press conference that the partnership between Austin-Travis County EMS and the Austin Police Department has continued to evolve and become more refined over time, improving coordination and response in high-risk emergencies.
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“There has been significant investment over the past three to four years in that partnership, including adding dedicated EMS resources to the entertainment district on the weekends, as well as supplemental paramedics that are embedded with the Austin Police Department,” he said.
Officials have also pointed to broader public safety reforms on Sixth Street, including a pair of post-pandemic public safety initiatives called “Safer Sixth Street” and “Downtown Area Command” for EMS, both of which brought a wide range of other public safety investments to the city’s entertainment districts downtown.
The Safer Sixth Street initiative was conceived in the wake of another mass shooting nearly five years ago on Sixth Street. In the early hours of June 12, 2021, a gunman opened fire in the 400 block of East Sixth Street, leaving one dead and 13 injured.
Austin police officers and medics work a area after a shooting on Sunday March 1, 2026 in Austin.
Ricardo B. Brazziell/Austin American-Statesman
The Austin City Council launched the program to curb violence and underage drinking along the bustling nightlife corridor. The effort focused on brighter street lighting, stricter enforcement against underage alcohol use and a dedicated EMS presence on Sixth Street during weekend nights.
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Just over a year ago, the city also reopened Sixth Street to vehicle traffic on weekends, reversing years of street closures that had been put in place to accommodate heavy nightlife crowds.
The council launched the Downtown Area Command, which stations more EMS medics and vehicles downtown during weekends and special events, in October 2024 in response to multiple drownings in Lady Bird Lake. Watson said the program likely also contributed to the quick medical response.
“The recommendations coming from the professionals in EMS said they wanted and needed that sort of thing so we would be better ready if, God forbid, there was a situation like this,” Watson said Monday. “We think that also played a significant role” in addition to CAST units.
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Staff writer Dante Motley contributed to this report.