AUSTIN, Tex. – A deadly weekend mass shooting in Austin’s famed entertainment district arose from a feud between two groups of Central Texas teenagers, according to a police affidavit filed Wednesday.
Harker Heights High School student Jeremiah Tabb, 17, was arrested at school Monday and remained in Travis County Jail on Wednesday. He is charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, a second-degree felony punishable by two to 20 years in prison.
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Bond is set at $500,000, but a police spokesman said it was unclear if he had an attorney to speak on his behalf.
In the arrest affidavit filed by Austin police filed in a Travis County district court Wednesday, a wounded male juvenile is quoted as telling detectives at an Austin hospital that he was with friends on East Sixth Street, a famous entertainment strip, when they began exchanging stares with a youth he identified as JT and JT’s friends.
The male juvenile, who was not identified by name, said he had attended the same Killeen middle school as JT, who said to the juvenile’s group, “What y’all wanna do? Y’all wanna fight?” The juvenile said he answered, “It’s whatever,” at which point JT pulled a handgun from his waistband and opened fire. A companion of the juvenile, also a juvenile, drew his own gun and returned fire. One person was killed and more than a dozen others were wounded.
Police showed a yearbook photo of Tabb to the hospitalized juvenile, who identified him as the one who shot him. He told police that Tabb had already shot him in the leg in Killeen a few days earlier. Police in Killeen, 70 miles (113 kilometers) north of Austin, have a complaint on file from that shooting, according to the affidavit.
Police found eight spent shell casings on the sidewalk where Tabb and his group were standing, all of which were determined to have likely come from the same gun, the affidavit states. There was no word on whether shell casings were found in the street, where the juvenile’s group was walking.
The juvenile gunman also remained under detention. Police have released no information on that suspect, nor on whether they have determined who fired the shot that killed Douglas John Kantor, 25.