Austin Central Library shooting: New details released

Austin library shooting: New details released

The man accused of shooting someone inside the Austin Central Library is facing multiple charges, including five felonies. Court records also show he was on probation for previous felonies from 2023.

AUSTIN, Texas - A man is facing multiple charges after he allegedly shot someone on a bus, then someone else inside the Austin Central Library on Saturday.

He was also on probation for two felonies from 2023, according to court records.

What we know:

Harold Newton Keene, 55, has been charged with:

• 3 counts of second-degree felony aggravated assault with a deadly weapon
• 1 count of first-degree felony manufacture/delivery of a controlled substance
• 1 count of third-degree felony tampering/fabricating physical evidence with intent to impair
• 1 count of deadly conduct, a Class A misdemeanor
• 1 count of failure to identify as a fugitive/giving false information, a Class A misdemeanor

All of the above charges are connected to the events on Saturday, Oct. 25.

Harold Keene

Keene also has been charged with terroristic threat, a Class B misdemeanor, for an incident in April. He was also on probation for two previous charges from 2023: possession of a controlled substance and unlawful possession of a weapon with a felony conviction.

Bond has been set at a collective $315,000 with multiple conditions, including: no firearms or ammunition, staying away from the Austin Central Library and all CapMetro buses, and drug and mental health evaluations.

Both victims from Saturday's events were transported to local hospitals and are expected to survive, Austin police say.

Timeline:

Court paperwork outlines the events of Oct. 25 leading up to Keene's arrest.

Just after 1:30 a.m., Austin police officers responded to a "shoot/stab hotshot call" on Guadalupe Street, where multiple callers reported a man on a bus with a gun.

A witness reported seeing the man pull a gun on a woman and child on the bus, while another reported someone had been shot at on the bus and the suspect had gotten off the bus. 

Officers met with a man who had sustained a "grazing wound" to his hip from a gunshot. He had been traveling with his significant other who was driving the bus.

The victim told officers he saw "an older Black male who appeared to be mentally unstable." The man asked the victim for his soda, which the victim handed over. The man then made odd comments, asking if the victim was spraying fumes at him and rambling about the CIA and conspiracies.

The victim then reported that the man turned his attention to a woman and child on the bus, telling the woman to tell the child to stop looking at him. The man then pulled out a pistol and held it up, pointing it at the woman and child.

The victim also said when he confronted the man about the gun, he saw him produce a bag of what looked like crystal meth and eat from it. The victim then told the driver to stop the bus.

The man then began to "trip out" and the victim got off the bus. He told officers that when he turned back, the man had moved to the front and pointed the gun at him, firing a single round which grazed his left hip. The victim ran from the scene and the suspect then fled the scene on a scooter.

The suspect was described to police as an older Black male with a gray mini-afro and a teardrop tattoo under his left eye. He had been seen wearing a black and gray hoodie, black pants, shoes and a fanny pack.

1 arrested, 1 injured in shooting at Austin library

Austin police said one person has been transported to the hospital after what they are calling a "critical incident" in downtown Austin Saturday.

Less than 11 hours later, police responded to the Austin Public Library on W. Cesar Chavez Street just after 1 p.m. in reference to multiple calls about someone who had been shot in the bathroom and the suspect had been standing on the toilet seat.

Surveillance footage showed the victim fleeing the sixth floor bathroom and a suspect, described as an older Black man in a gray hoodie, exiting the same bathroom. More footage showed the same suspect boarding a CapMetro bus heading west on Cesar Chavez.

Police informed CapMetro about the situation, and the transit agency was able to find the suspect had gotten off the bus in the 3900 block of S. Lamar and was seen walking through a parking lot.

A police sergeant found a man matching the suspect's description at a nearby Starbucks. The man was detained, and the sergeant reported finding a bag by him that had a handgun and narcotics inside.

Police also determined based on video and still photos that the suspect in both shootings that day was the same person.

Police spoke with the detained man and learned he had initially lied about his identity, positively identifying him instead as Keene, arrest paperwork says. 

Keene allegedly told police he had been involved in an altercation where a man and the bus driver told him to get off a bus, and that he had shot the man. He also reportedly told police that he had used the same gun to shoot the second person at the library.