Gunshot Fire Reported at 2016 SXSW
A week-plus of fun and music in Austin, Texas was briefly disrupted early Sunday morning (March 20) when police reported gunshots fired in the area of the South By Southwest music festival.
USA Today reports that police took a person into custody early Sunday in association with the incident in question. Officers recovered a gun around the intersection of Sixth Avenue and Trinity Street near the Trinity Hall at the Old School Bar & Grill. Local rockers Hour Band were playing a free show at the venue around the time of the incident.
"Everybody just started running, screaming 'oh my goodness,'" stated 37-year-old security guard Sean Smith to the paper. He added that he heard several pops sometime around 1:30AM CT, and while he didn't see who fired the shots, a number of people ran toward the vendor tent where he was working to flea the situation. According to reports, no injuries resulted from the incident and the suspect was "captured."
The festival was expected to draw up to 70,000 people to Austin for the annual event. In recent years, SXSW has expanded to not only include music but a film festival as well. This isn't the first time that SXSW has been marred by an incident that necessitated police involvement. In 2014, four people were killed when a driver attempted to flea a drunk driving charge sped around a barricade into a crowd. In addition to those killed, more than 20 people were injured in that incident as well. The driver was sentenced to life in prison for his actions.