By Brad Brooks and Jana Winter
March 2 (Reuters) – Authorities investigating a mass shooting at a bar in Austin, Texas, that killed at least two people said on Monday it was too early to say if the gunman was motivated by the war in Iran.
The body of the gunman, who was killed by police, was seen in a photo obtained by Reuters wearing a shirt with an Iranian flag and “IRAN” spelled out in green, white and red across the front. He was also wearing a sweatshirt that said “Property of Allah” on it, a government official told Reuters.
“Our priority is finding answers and the motives behind this crime,” Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis told reporters during a briefing on Monday, emphasizing it was too early to understand the motives of the suspect.
Alex Doran, acting special agent in charge of the FBI’s San Antonio field office, said the bureau was investigating any links to terror, but that it was just one of “multiple other avenues” agents are looking at.
“It’s always very difficult to determine what’s in an individual’s mind that leads them to commit this type of violence,” Doran said.
Davis identified the two people killed at the scene of the shooting as Savitha Shan, 24, and Ryder Harrington, 22. She said that another person who was shot was expected to be taken off life support later on Monday.
Law enforcement officials said the suspect had a history of mental health conditions, according to an internal update from the National Counterterrorism Center reviewed by Reuters.
The shooter was identified as Ndiaga Diagne, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Senegal, according to the Counterterrorism Center’s update. Authorities have not yet publicly identified the gunman.
The shooting happened outside Buford’s, a popular bar in the West 6th Street stretch of Austin — known as the heart of the city’s music and nightlife area.
Prior to the attack, the shooter drove an SUV multiple times around the block where the bar is located, police said. He then turned on his hazard lights, rolled down the window and opened fire with a pistol on bar patrons, police added.
The shooter then drove west, parked the vehicle and got out, and started firing at pedestrians before police officers shot and killed him at a nearby intersection.
On Sunday, authorities said that 14 other people were injured.
The incident marked the 56th U.S. mass shooting this year and the one with the most victims so far, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as an incident in which at least four people, not including the shooter, are injured or killed by gunfire.
The U.S. had 407 mass shootings last year, according to archive data.
(Reporting by Brad Brooks in Colorado and Jana Winter in Washington; Editing by Paul Thomasch and Bill Berkrot)
