Ryder Harrington and Savitha Shan never made it home from their night out on West Sixth Street. A gunman opened fire along the bar-lined street early Sunday, killing both of them and wounding 16 others in a burst of violence that stunned the city.
By Monday, the death toll had climbed again. Jorge Pederson, who had been on life support, died from his injuries, authorities said.
The gunman was pronounced dead at the scene after a gunfire exchange with police. In all, 19 people were shot — four fatally and 15 injured.
The bloodshed marks the shooting with the most casualties in Travis County in at least 12 years and among the highest victim counts of shootings in Texas during that period, according to an American-Statesman analysis of Gun Violence Archive data.
It also underscores a recurring pattern along Austin’s Sixth Street entertainment district, where large crowds spill onto the sidewalks at bar closing. Since 2014, four of the Travis County shootings with the highest victim counts have unfolded somewhere along Sixth Street.
Outside of downtown, the county’s most catastrophic recent shooting occurred Dec. 5, 2023. Prosecutors allege that a young man later deemed mentally incompetent to stand trial killed his parents in San Antonio before driving to South Austin, where he fatally shot four more people. In total, nine people were shot across multiple scenes, and a police officer was injured near Northeast Early College High School in Northeast Austin.
Statewide, the West Sixth shooting ranks eighth in total victims in recent years.
The highest tolls in Texas over the past decade came at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs in 2017 and at a Walmart in El Paso in 2019. Each left 46 people shot. They were followed by the 2022 massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, where 38 people were shot, and a 2019 shooting spree across Odessa and Midland that impacted 30 victims.