AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 A TxDPS trooper fatally shot the driver of a stolen Fort Worth Fire\/EMS ambulance Thursday morning after the driver led law enforcement on a chase down I-35 and intentionally rammed multiple vehicles, closing the upper deck of the interstate for hours.<\/p>\n
DPS said troopers were notified at 6:30 a.m. that a Fort Worth Fire\/EMS ambulance had been stolen and was traveling southbound on I-35 in Williamson County. Troopers located the ambulance and attempted a traffic stop, activating their lights, but the driver refused to stop and began evading law enforcement, DPS said.<\/p>\n
As the ambulance continued south near U.S. 290 in Austin, the driver began intentionally ramming multiple civilian vehicles, according to DPS. Troopers attempted to perform a PIT maneuver to stop the vehicle, but those efforts were unsuccessful, DPS said.<\/p>\n
The ambulance continued ramming vehicles as it drove onto the upper deck of I-35.<\/p>\n
A trooper then discharged a firearm, striking the driver, DPS said. The suspect was pronounced dead at the scene. The person’s identity had not been released.<\/p>\n
The Texas Rangers are on scene and are actively investigating the officer-involved shooting, DPS said.<\/p>\n
The closure was first announced by the Austin Police Department shortly before 8 a.m. Thursday. APD initially described it as an “active law enforcement” incident involving DPS and later updated its post to say the roadway would be closed from U.S. 183 into downtown Austin.<\/p>\n
DPS said the southbound upper deck of I-35 will remain closed until the investigation is complete.<\/p>\n
Police have urged drivers to avoid the area and use alternate routes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 A TxDPS trooper fatally shot the driver of a stolen Fort Worth Fire\/EMS ambulance Thursday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":405650,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-405665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405665\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}