Police expanding safety improvements in downtown Austin after 6th Street mass shooting

AUSTIN, Texas - The Austin Police Department is expanding its security measures to improve the safety of downtown.

This comes after a mass shooting at a West Sixth Street Bar in March, when three people were killed and more than a dozen others were injured.

The backstory:

City leaders have been exploring and implementing new measures like police staging, barriers, and traffic patterns for years on the east side. But we're now learning plans to add new safety zones on the west side of downtown.

The March 1 mass shooting on west 6th street killed three people and injured 13 outside Buford's bar.

"The public safety resources and teams we have in place made a significant difference within seconds," said APD Chief Lisa Davis.

Austin police say officers responded in under a minute, moving from East 6th Street to West 6th.

Chief Lisa Davis says patrol officers and supervisors are regularly assigned to the entertainment district.

The patrol uses a public safety zone as a staging point and designated work zones on East 6th street for police, fire and EMS.

"A second public safety zone was being designed for west 6th Street prior to this incident. APD also utilizes a counter assault strike team, casts officers on weekends and during special events. Cast officers' partner with AFD and EMS known as CASTMED personnel to create a rescue task force," said Davis.

That task force is designed for rapid deployment to large scale violent incidents and to provide tactical medical care.

Austin-Travis County EMS says those resources were instrumental in getting care on scene quickly.

"In addition to the CASTMED program, we also have the DTAC program implemented in 2025, which allows us to provide dedicated paramedics and EMTS in the downtown entertainment district. Those resources were on scene. In fact, they were just closing up for the evening when the shooting occurred," said Chief Robert Luckritz, Austin-Travis County EMS.

Dig deeper:

APD is now working to speed up those response times even more.

"APD has designated a second public safety zone on West 6th Street to provide faster deployment to the west side of the entertainment district, and this is ongoing now," said Chief Davis.

Austin Fire Chief Joel Baker says while this isn't the city’s first mass shooting, it likely won't be the last.

"This reality drives Austin Fire to prioritize training, practices, and equipment that can and does save lives. These resources were brought to bear the night of the Buford's incident, and they did make a big difference," said Buford's.

Fire crews arrived within four minutes that night with 35 personnel responding. All critical patients were transported within 24 minutes, and all patients with less serious injuries were cleared from the scene within 47 minutes.

But officials say there are still lessons to learn.

"As far as calling an emergency operations center, that next day we should've called for that to be put up and that could have been that coordination of our victims' services getting all that done, ensuring that all the councils were notified and up to date," said Davis.

"Our preliminary internal review reveals an additional opportunity to advance communication and coordination among public safety agencies both prior to and during emergencies that would improve scene management, facilitate more timely updates and reduce the chances of duplicate efforts," said Baker.

What's next:

APD is still developing the plan for the public safety zone on West Sixth.

Some trial runs for it have been in the works, but APD is still working to finalize exactly how they'll operate.

The feds are still investigating the mass shooting in March. 

Chief Davis expects more information from the FBI in the coming weeks.

After-action reports are also being done for each agency.