A growing memorial of flowers, candles and photographs honors the victims of the mass shooting outside Buford’s Backyard Beer Garden in Austin on Thursday, March 5, 2026. Ryder Harrington, 19; Savitha Shan, 21; and Jorge Pederson, 30, were killed in the shooting early Sunday. The gunman also died.
Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman
For thousands of people each weekend, a night out in Austin ends at Buford’s Backyard Beer Garden downtown. The bar’s electric atmosphere on West Sixth Street draws University of Texas students, Austin visitors and longtime patrons celebrating with friends.
Just before closing time on March 1, the bar was packed with revelers dancing to ABBA, Kesha and Taylor Swift. Within minutes, gunfire erupted outside, sending people scrambling for cover and leaving the crowd caught in one of the worst mass shootings in Austin in decades.
Article continues below this ad
A growing memorial of flowers, candles and photographs honors the victims of the mass shooting outside Buford’s Backyard Beer Garden in Austin on Thursday, March 5, 2026. Ryder Harrington, 19; Savitha Shan, 21; and Jorge Pederson, 30, were killed in the shooting early Sunday. The gunman also died.
Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman
At 1:58 a.m., a night out at Buford’s turned into chaos.
As patrons gathered on the curb on a humid summerlike night, the driver of a large black Cadillac SUV stopped on Rio Grande Street, turned on the vehicle’s hazard lights and opened fire toward the bar and passersby. The FBI is investigating the attack as a possible act of terrorism.
Two victims and the shooter died that night, and 16 people were treated for injuries. Savitha Shan, a 21-year-old UT student, and Ryder Harrington, a 19-year-old former Texas Tech University student, were pronounced dead at the scene. A third victim, Jorge Munoz-Pederson, a 30-year-old aspiring mixed martial arts fighter who had moved to Austin just two weeks earlier, died Monday in the hospital. As of Friday, two people remained hospitalized, one in critical condition.
Article continues below this ad
A growing memorial of flowers, candles and photographs honors the victims of the mass shooting outside Buford’s Backyard Beer Garden in Austin on Thursday, March 5, 2026. Ryder Harrington, 19; Savitha Shan, 21; and Jorge Pederson, 30, were killed in the shooting early Sunday. The gunman also died.
Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman
Police fatally shot the gunman a block away from Buford’s, responding in less than a minute after the first call, officials said.
The American-Statesman interviewed witnesses from that night. Here is what they say happened:
Article continues below this ad
I. Gunfire on West Sixth
Known for its high-energy music, a wraparound porch with hanging lights and large seasonal decorations over the main entrance, Buford’s is a favorite venue among UT students and graduates. It welcomes thousands of patrons each weekend and led West Sixth Street establishments in alcohol sales last year.
It’s “the spot” for upperclassmen, said senior Shriya Senapathi, 22, who had gone out for the first time in weeks on the night of the shooting. Accompanied by her roommates and her boyfriend, Senapathi ran into friends and classmates on the dance floor, as she usually did at Buford’s.
“Everyone was just letting loose after midterms week,” Senapathi said.
Article continues below this ad
Among the hundreds in and around Buford’s was Munoz-Pederson, who was out with his new co-workers, his mother told the Statesman. Harrington was on the street with two close friends, according to a social media post. Shan had helped organize a cultural show for her South Asian dance organization earlier that evening. Her group planned to celebrate afterward downtown.
Alexandra Benz sits in her apartment in Austin’s West Campus neighborhood on Friday, March 6, 2026, days after surviving the mass shooting outside Buford’s Backyard Beer Garden on West Sixth Street.
Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman
When the lights at Buford’s turned on and the music softened about 10 minutes before closing, 22-year-old Alexandra Benz and a friend walked down from the balcony overlooking the dance floor and headed toward the bar’s side exit on Rio Grande Street. As she stood alongside the bouncer, her friend called her back from inside. She wanted to finish her drink.
Benz walked toward her friend and looked at the Uber app on her phone.
Article continues below this ad
Seconds later, the gunfire started.
At first, Benz thought the sound was a car backfiring — then she looked up. In front of her, just out of arm’s reach, a man collapsed onto the ground, a crimson hole in his head. To his left, a woman was lying on the ground unconscious.
“It wasn’t until I heard the air whoosh past me and I felt my leg that I realized what was happening,” Benz said. “Then everybody started screaming.”
Benz looked down. Her bare legs and her light brown leather Frye boots were drenched in the man’s blood. A pair of hands grabbed her and pulled her to the ground.
Article continues below this ad
A bullet in that same barrage hit a crouching Karan Bhakta, a 21-year-old UT engineering student. As he stood, he felt a warm sensation pooling down his head where a bullet had grazed the top of his scalp — inches away from becoming a fatal wound.
“I’ve never seen that much of my own blood,” Bhakta said. “At that moment, I was just hoping there was not enough blood to get me to the point where I would pass out.”
Arlene Hernandez hugs her daughter Lauren Braxton, 21, a University of Texas junior majoring in mathematics with an actuarial science track who was wounded in the West Sixth Street shooting, during a portrait session in Houston on Friday, March 6, 2026.
Raquel Natalicchio/Houston Chronicle
A bullet grazed the right eyebrow and eyelid of nearby 21-year-old student Lauren Braxton. She only saw a flash of light before the force of the shot knocked her to the ground. Another bullet pierced the lower thigh of the friend standing next to Braxton, fellow student Isabela Perazzo Beine.
Article continues below this ad
Dozens on the dance floor ran out the West Sixth Street exit to escape the bar and hide outside, or run home. Perazzo Beine, 21, went deeper into the bar. When she saw a scarlet streak blotted on her leg, she started crying out for help. Patrons — many just as panicked and some in a drunken stupor — ran by her.
As friends watched friends bleed, some picked up their phones to call loved ones or police. Much of the crowd began to huddle behind tables and bars or lie against the ground. Others made a break for the bathrooms, crawling or running in a hunched position. Braxton and Perazzo Beine followed.
Isabela Perazzo Beine sits in her apartment near the University of Texas at Austin on Friday, March 6, 2026. Perrazo Beine survived a mass shooting at Buford’s on west 6th street on Sunday March 1, 2026 and sustained a minor injury from shrapnel.
Aaron E. Martinez/Austin American-Statesman
From her place just behind the Rio Grande Street entrance, Benz did her best to stay still. She lay on her back and, after a few moments, propped herself up on her elbows. In a daze, she began to study the scene around her.
Article continues below this ad
She could tell then that the woman who had fainted in front of her had been shot in the abdomen. A group of men stood around the woman, applying pressure to the wound.
The man who had been shot in the head appeared to be in his 30s and was losing blood profusely, his skull shattered.
In Buford’s partially-covered patio alongside Rio Grande Street, Senapathi and her friends stood looking at each other, shocked by the gunfire. Senapathi took off her black kitten heels. She knew they would have to run for safety.
“We’re moving,” she told her friends, and the group began to sprint north toward their apartments.
Article continues below this ad
George Davis Jr. is photographed at his home in Austin on Thursday, March 5, 2026. Davis was shot and wounded in the mass shooting on West Sixth Street early Sunday, March 1, and is seeking to identify the bystanders who helped save his life.
Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman
Running west on West Sixth Street was George Davis Jr., who was sitting on the metal railing in front of Buford’s eating a hot dog when shots rang out. When Davis reached a parking lot at the corner of West Sixth and Wood streets, he assumed he had made it to safety.
Davis stumbled forward. Pain exploded in his lower left shoulder blade.
Article continues below this ad
The sensation felt like being struck “by a baseball or a crossbow at 100 miles per hour,” said Davis, a 34-year-old sales manager. “I probably ran five or six steps, then the pain started kicking in and I just dropped to my knees.”
Video released by Austin police shows a person running into the parking lot. Less than five yards away, the 53-year-old gunman lowers his head and takes aim. Davis believes he was that man.
Lying on the ground, blood rushing down his back onto his pants, Davis felt liquid seep into his lungs.
Article continues below this ad
He took out his phone and texted a group chat with his brother and friends, telling them that he’d been shot and that he loved them. Then he dialed 911.
“I didn’t know how long I had,” Davis said.
Calls to 911 were rushing in from all over the block. In one call released by police, a woman can be heard amid a clamor of shouting repeatedly yelling for people to get down. The commotion continues for about 30 seconds before the caller tells the operator: “There are people dead over here.”
After driving around Buford’s, the suspected gunman had parked his car on Wood Street and walked east on West Sixth Street with an AR-15 assault rifle, shooting, police said.
Article continues below this ad
At the same time, police were moving westward along West Sixth Street. The officers crouched behind parked cars, inching toward the shooter. They screamed at pedestrians to clear the sidewalk.
In one clip, two young women just in front of a police officer duck between two vehicles as the gunman, only yards away, approaches from the east.
“Where is he?” another officer yells as he moves between the crowd.
Three police officers eventually shot the gunman as he crossed the intersection of West Sixth Street and West Avenue.
II. In the moments after
Braxton and Perazzo Beine reunited in the bathroom, along with a third friend who was a pre-med student at UT. Amid two dozen people crammed into the bathroom, the friend tied a stranger’s flannel around Perazzo Beine’s leg, a tourniquet to stop the bleeding. Braxton wiped the blood from her face, wincing as she cleaned her eyebrow. People argued about letting others in or out of the bathroom, afraid that the shooter could be inside the bar.
Article continues below this ad
A few feet away, a young man helped Benz through a back door onto a parking lot, where she and her friend hid under cars for several more minutes. Bhakta and his friends stayed inside, crouched down, until police arrived.
Outside, some survivors began carrying the wounded into the bar, said Alex Freeman, 49, a pedicab driver who witnessed the scene outside. Paramedics and police officers quickly joined them as they arrived on the scene. Videos of the aftermath show survivors and police officers doing chest compressions on unresponsive patients. Blood coated the ground; sirens and cries replaced the music of the night.
The injured victims who had taken shelter in the bathroom were ushered past the scene as they were taken for medical attention. After seeing a face-down man soaked in blood, with torn clothes, Perazzo Beine did her best to stop looking at the deadly aftermath around her.
Lauren Braxton, 21, a University of Texas junior majoring in mathematics with an actuarial science track who was wounded in the West Sixth Street shooting, studies with her dog at her moms house in Houston on Friday, March 6, 2026.
Raquel Natalicchio/Houston Chronicle
Several blocks away, Senapathi was still running and fearing for her life — and for her friends she had separated from just before the shooting.
Article continues below this ad
“In those moments running, I couldn’t think of anything. I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s just like, blank,” she said. “I was so scared that there could be someone in a car
that’d be driving by to find the people that were escaping.”
Out in the parking lot, Davis was afraid he would bleed out. He was alone. A rush of adrenaline lifted him to his feet.
“I wasn’t going to die there,” Davis said Thursday, reflecting on the night.
Article continues below this ad
Rushing onto North Lamar Boulevard, Davis tried in vain to flag down passing cars. He began to feel anger and helplessness — a feeling exacerbated when the 911 operator hung up on him to take other calls. The operator’s assurances that police had his location did nothing to calm him.
A young woman in a ponytail carrying two H-E-B bags stumbled into him. She grabbed a shirt from her bag and applied pressure to his shoulder wound. A man in his mid-20s who was also fleeing the gunshots ran by a few minutes later. Seeing Davis, he called a friend, who put the three of them in his car and zoomed toward Dell Seton Hospital.
The car sped through the streets. Davis coughed blood the entire way. He worried about the blood staining the back seats.
“You guys are saving me,” he told them again and again, until a police officer pulled him out into the hospital’s emergency entrance and carried the 6-foot-6 Davis inside.
Article continues below this ad
III. ‘It all seems so minuscule now’
Later that morning, Benz lay in bed at a friend’s house, nestled beside a friend who had also gone out that night. Earlier that morning, Benz and her friends had sat for hours in the house’s backyard, trying to exhaust themselves with small talk and tired jokes about each other. Nobody wanted to address the shooting directly, she said.
But though her friend was now sleeping next to her, Benz was wide awake as daylight broke and the rest of Austin woke up to the news of what she had survived. She refreshed her phone for news updates and tried to piece together the broken scenes of the night.
That morning, after being released from the hospital, Bhakta and his friends went to McDonald’s. The series of events was “the most American thing” he’d ever felt, he said.
Article continues below this ad
As the day continued and police barriers were taken down, witnesses, friends and strangers left flowers and candles on a makeshift memorial on Buford’s front step. Bar workers covered the bullet holes on the walls of West Sixth Street establishments with mortar.
On Monday, Senapathi dragged herself to school for class. Several seats in the room were empty.
“It’s just been really heavy on campus,” Senapathi said. “Campus just felt so empty.”
But other students who spoke to the Statesman couldn’t bring themselves to go to class in the days after the shooting. Benz said she spent the week almost exclusively indoors, distracting herself with movies and fretting over when she’ll have to be in a large group again. Perazzo Beine tried to go to class for the first time Wednesday, but as she walked through campus, the crowds around her set off a newfound anxiety.
Article continues below this ad
She skipped her first class and tried again a few hours later with her next one. Again, she couldn’t make it in the door.
George Davis Jr. talks to his mother, Maria Davis, at his home in Austin on Thursday, March 5, 2026. Davis was shot and wounded in the mass shooting on West Sixth Street early Sunday, March 1, and is seeking to identify the bystanders who helped save his life.
Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman
Davis was discharged from the hospital Tuesday after undergoing surgery. His mother drove in from out of town to care for him. Braxton drove to Houston to be with family.
Many survivors have begun counseling. UT, the city and the FBI have offered crisis counseling and other support services to victims and their families.
Article continues below this ad
The stress of the night remains. Benz and Senapathi make sure they’re home before sunset. Perazzo Beine has had trouble listening to loud music and doesn’t foresee herself ever returning to Buford’s. Bhakta said he won’t return to Sixth Street.
“I’m a very outgoing person,” Perazzo Beine said. “So I don’t want this incident to take away my ability to have fun and enjoy myself. I don’t want this to take that from me.”
Perazzo Beine, who still has a piece of shrapnel embedded in her leg, said the shooting has changed how she sees the everyday parts of her life — from what she wears to the law school applications she once worried about.
Only days earlier, she had been dancing with friends to nostalgic pop hits at Buford’s.
Article continues below this ad
Now, the things that once filled her days feel smaller.
“It all seems so minuscule now,” she said.