2026 Austin bar shooting
Map
Location 30°16′12.4″N 97°44′59.1″W / 30.270111°N 97.749750°W / 30.270111; -97.749750
West Sixth Street, Austin, Texas, US
Date March 1, 2026 (2026-03-01)
c. 1:58 a.m. – 2:00 a.m. (CST; UTC−06:00)
Target People at the bar and surrounding area
Attack type
Weapons
Deaths 4 (including the perpetrator)
Injured 13
Perpetrator Ndiaga Diagne
Defenders Austin Police Department
Motive Under investigation (possibly terrorism)

On March 1, 2026, a mass shooting occurred at Buford's Backyard Beer Garden on West Sixth Street in downtown Austin, Texas, United States. The perpetrator, 53-year-old Ndiaga Diagne, shot and killed three people and injured thirteen others before he was fatally shot by police.

The shooting is being investigated as a possible act of terrorism related to the war between the United States and Israel against Iran and its proxies.

Shooting

At around 1:58 a.m., the gunman allegedly drove a Cadillac Escalade past the Buford's Backyard Beer Garden bar on West Sixth Street several times before stopping, turning on the hazard lights and opening fire on people at a patio and in front of the bar with a pistol out the window of his vehicle. He then parked near Wood Street, got out of his vehicle, and began shooting at people in the area with the pistol and a rifle. The first 911 call was made at 1:59 a.m. Officers who were stationed nearby responded a minute later and fatally shot him.[1] The gunman only shot from outside the bar.[2][3]

Victims

Four people were killed, including the shooter, and 13 others were injured, including two critically. Those killed were identified as 19-year-old former Texas Tech University student Ryder Harrington, 30-year-old Minnesotan mixed martial arts fighter Jorge Pederson, and 21-year-old University of Texas at Austin student Savitha Shan.[3][4][5][6] Pederson was taken off life support a day after the shooting.[7]

Perpetrator

Security still of Diagne leaving his apartment shortly before the attack.

Police identified the shooter as 53-year-old Ndiaga Diagne (c. 1972-1973 – March 1, 2026), a Pflugerville, Texas, resident and a naturalized US citizen who had originally immigrated from Senegal.[8][9] Diagne had also lived in The Bronx, where he was arrested by the New York Police Department for illegal vending,[10] and in the northeast side of San Antonio for several years.[11] Diagne was reportedly wearing a sweatshirt that read "Property of Allah" with an undershirt of an Islamic Republic of Iran flag and investigators located a Quran in his vehicle.[8][12][13] Officials confirmed that Diagne came to the United States on a tourist visa on March 13, 2000, got a green card in June 2006, and obtained US citizenship in 2013.[9][14]

Both law enforcement and a Texas District Court judge confirmed that Diagne had a history of mental health conditions and a history or pattern of committing domestic violence.[1] The judge told KXAS-TV that Diagne's ex-wife filed for divorce while residing in Bexar County in September 2022 after ten years and six months of marriage. She alleged in a petition that her husband was "guilty of cruel treatment towards Petitioner of a nature that renders living together insupportable".[15] Online records confirmed that Diagne had been both married and divorced twice. Diagne first married in The Bronx on December 30, 2005, but divorced in 2008. Diagne then married again in Manhattan in March 2012, but divorced again in September 2022.[16]

Law enforcement records confirm that Diagne had an extensive criminal history dating back to his first arrest for illegal vending on June 29, 2001, in Manhattan.[16] On January 30, 2016, Diagne was accused of critically injuring a woman in Brooklyn after purposely running her over with a company car, which was owned by Hurricane Management Corporation, on Flatbush Avenue. That same year, Diagne moved to Texas.[7][17]

An X account which investigators believe to be connected to the shooter was created in October 2024 and last posted in December 2025. In the posts, Diagne expressed pro-Iranian, antisemitic, anti-Christian, and misogynistic views, but did not indicate Diagne's intent to commit an attack. In April 2024, amid rising tensions between Israel and Iran, Diagne replied to a post from Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, in which Araghchi criticized President Donald Trump and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, writing "THE ISLAMIC REVOLUTION IS ETERNAL … you Zionist and islamophobes can be angry all you want but you can't do a damn thing about it no matter what [sic]". Other posts from Diagne included one in which he called Trump a "shameless clown" and another which described Netanyahu as "EVIL". In other posts, Diagne denigrated Christianity, calling the religion "fake" and using vulgar language against various foundational Christian leaders. Diagne also made several replies to far-right political activist Laura Loomer, which attacked her for her views. In October 2025, Diagne replied "Muslims worship THE ONE AND ONLY TRUE GOD" to a post which said "Muslims and Christians don't worship the same God". Two months later, Diagne replied "SPERM and have built everything in this world" to a meme which said "Women produce babies. What do men produce?".[18]

Aftermath

A Waymo driverless taxi blocked an ambulance from responding to the shooting by getting stuck blocking both lanes of traffic. The ambulance eventually backed out from the road, and afterwards the Waymo taxi pulled into a parking garage.[19] The company declined to offer a statement about the incident.[20] According to the White House, President Donald Trump had been briefed on the shooting.[3]

Investigation

The shooting is being investigated as a possible act of terrorism related to the war between the United States and Israel against Iran and its proxies.[21][22] Officials executed a search warrant at Ndiaga Diagne's house and found an Islamic Republic of Iran flag and pictures of Iranian leaders.[9]

The FBI said that Diagne was not on their radar as a potential threat before the shooting, and a spokesperson for the FBI's San Antonio office said that the agency's "ultimate goal" was to "determine the motive". The spokesperson also said that the weapons used in the attack had been legally purchased in San Antonio several years prior to the attack.[23] Texas governor Greg Abbott said that FBI agents were working in conjunction with the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) to determine if Diagne acted alone or if he had connections to a terrorist group.[24]

Reactions

National

Texas senator Ted Cruz spoke about the shooting during an interview with Margaret Brennan on Fox News' Face the Nation and said that he and his wife, Heidi, were "praying for those who were wounded and the families of those who were killed".[25] Senator John Cornyn said that it was "a shock that something like this could happen in Austin, Texas, just literally blocks away from where I live" and that "the fact that somebody came to this country, was given a green card and became radicalized at some point, unfortunately, is a story we’ve heard before".[26]

Representatives Greg Casar and Lloyd Doggett, who both represent parts of the city of Austin, both made calls for gun control legislation to be passed in the House of Representatives following the shooting. Casar said that he was "horrified and heartbroken" by the shooting and that "we must end America’s gun violence epidemic", and pledged to "redouble my efforts in Congress to prevent the next tragedy like this". Doggett said that he and his wife were "mourning and praying" for the victims and that gun violence was preventable and that "until Republicans find the courage to say no to the NRA, our country will be plagued with more tragedies".[27] Representative Chip Roy, who is running for the Republican nomination for Texas attorney general, posted unconfirmed details about the shooter's immigration to the United States and subsequent naturalization, writing that the shooter had been given residency during the presidency of George W. Bush "amid GOP celebration of the joys of ‘melting pot’ legal immigration" and called for the immediate pause of all immigration to the United States.[28]

State

Texas governor Greg Abbott released a statement offering his condolences to the victims and said that he was in contact with Austin's mayor, Kirk Watson, and the director of the DPS, Freeman Martin, concerning the incident. Abbott pledged "full support of the State of Texas" in response to the shooting. Abbott ordered the Texas Military Department to activate service members to protect communities and critical infrastructure from potential future attacks and directed the DPS and Texas National Guard to increase their patrols and surveillance activities.[29] Abbott said that the mobilization was necessary to protect against any potential future attacks "as long as this war is going on".[24]

The commissioner of the Texas Department of Agriculture (TDA), Sid Miller, posted on X after the shooting thanking Abbott for his response and stating that "As Texans, we stand together, undivided and arm-in-arm against this radical ideology which spawns such hatred" and "we mourn the dead, tend the wounded, and pray for the families, even as we harden our resolve to see our state forever liberated from this evil". A day later, through the official TDA account on X, Miller released a statement that he had "received multiple threats to my personal safety" due to "my outspoken condemnation of the Islamification of Texas and the United States" and "my righteous anger over the horrific terror attack in Austin" and that he would not be "intimidated or silenced".[30]

Local

Watson praised the response of police officers to the shooting, stating that he was "very thankful for the speed with which our officials responded to this" and that "I don’t think there’s any question: It saved lives". City council member Zohaib Qadri, whose district includes downtown, said that he was "deeply shaken and heartbroken" and was in contact with investigators.[24] Qadri, who is the first Muslim elected to the Austin City Council said that Muslim constituents reached out to him after the shooting fearing that they might become victims of Islamophobic violence after the shooting. Qadri also hosted a blood drive outside Austin City Hall after the shooting.[31]

Representative James Talarico, who was running for the Democratic nomination for Senate, argued with Abbott on X about the response to and cause of the shooting, with Abbott writing to Talarico, that "allowing unvetted immigrants who are hostile to America, who are loyal to our adversaries like Iran, must end" and wrote that it "was an act of terror, James" and went on to criticize Talarico's immigration policies. Talarico responded to Abbott, writing, "dangerous people should not be allowed into the country. Dangerous people should not be allowed to get guns. Texans understand this — you apparently don’t".[28]

Speculation and backlash about potential charges against the officers who shot the shooter began after an attorney for the Austin Police Association (APA) posted on social media that he would represent the officers in the Travis County District Attorney's office usual grand jury review process for officer-involved shootings. The president of APA, Michael Bullock, said that the officer's situation was "an extraordinary circumstance" and that the "officers have been through enough, and anything can happen in a grand jury".[32] Abbott released a statement on X in response to the speculation which said that "these police officers are heroes who saved lives" and that he would "have the final say in the fate of these police officers". The backlash prompted Travis County district attorney José Garza to respond to the claims that he intended to have the officers face a grand jury in a statement, which stated, "these officers are heroes, and it should go without saying that my office is not seeking any charges and would not seek charges" and that speculation about potential charges against the officers by his office were "intentionally false". Garza expressed his condolences to the victims and said that his office was "grateful for the bravery that these officers showed", and that his office was "disgusted by the leaders in Texas using their deaths to score political points".[33]

Organizations

The Texas branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) released a statement condemning the shooting and "all acts of unjust violence anywhere in our country and around the world, regardless of the perpetrator or the motivation". In the statement, CAIR also said it would "reject any efforts to ascribe collective blame or punishment to entire communities or faiths based on the actions of individual criminals" and urged "communities must unite in compassion and resilience, standing together for justice, understanding, and peace".[34]

The president of the University of Texas at Austin, Jim Davis, issued a letter to students after the shooting confirming the death of student Savitha Shan in the attack and injuries to several of their students, which said that her death was "devastating" and urged students to "lift each other up" to "find light through this darkness that presently surrounds us". Davis also wrote that he had met with several of the families of students affected by the shooting.[35] On March 3, a vigil organized by Students Demand Action was held at Shan's school, the University of Texas at Austin, to honor the victims of the shooting.[36]

A day after the shooting, the Beta Theta Pi fraternity of Texas Tech University, where victim Ryder Harrington studied until fall 2025 and pledged to the fraternity in 2024, held a vigil for Harrington.[37] The school released a statement after Harrington's murder, stating that the school was "saddened to learn of the tragic incident in Austin that resulted in the loss of life" and that their "thoughts are with Ryder's family, friends, and all those affected by this devastating situation".[38]

See also

References

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  2. ^ Sather, Laura (March 1, 2026). "FBI investigating 'potential nexus to terrorism' in 6th Street shooting that left two dead, 14 injured; Shooter also killed". KVUE. Retrieved March 1, 2026.
  3. ^ a b c Myer, Jack; Richer, Alanna Durkin; Seewer, John; Ronayne, Kathleen (March 1, 2026). "FBI investigates Texas bar shooting that killed 2 and wounded 14 as possible terrorist act". Associated Press. Retrieved March 1, 2026.
  4. ^ Bilbrey, Randy; Rooney, Caitlyn (March 2, 2026). "Former Texas Tech student killed in Austin mass shooting". KXAN-TV. Retrieved March 2, 2026.
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  8. ^ a b Roebuck, Jeremy; Hennessy-Fiske, Molly (March 1, 2026). "FBI probing whether Iran attack motivated Austin shooter who killed 2". The Washington Post. Retrieved March 2, 2026.
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