AUSTIN, Texas — Fleeing police, a driver gunned a sedan through a barricade and into a crowd of South by Southwest festival attendees shortly after midnight Thursday, killing two people, injuring 23 others and casting a pall over one of the nation’s hippest celebrations of music, movies and technology.
The driver struck multiple pedestrians around 12:30 a.m. on a block filled with concertgoers, then sped down the street, hitting and killing a man from the Netherlands on a bicycle and an Austin woman on a moped, Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo said. The driver eventually crashed into a parked van and tried to flee on foot before police used a stun gun to subdue him.
Rashad Charjuan Owens, 21, will face two counts of capital murder and 23 counts of aggravated assault with a vehicle, Austin police said.
Acevedo said he believed Owens was so intent on evading the police that he willfully drove into the crowd.
Acevedo said the crash transformed Red River Street — which is on the northeast edge of an Austin entertainment district that’s packed at all hours during South by Southwest — into “basically a very long crime scene.”
Three people were in critical condition Thursday afternoon, up from two earlier in the day.
“We are going to do our best for them, but these are some of the worst injuries that we see and not everybody with these kinds of injuries is going to survive,” said Dr. Christopher Ziebell, the emergency department director at the University Medical Center-Brackenridge.
