What Happened Near Highland Mall Last Night?
Ed Note: I've replaced the breaking post that ran on Austinist late last evening with this one; we're currently still piecing together the details of what exactly transpired around Highland Mall.
What appears to be the case is that one person—a colleague whom we've collaborated on events with in the past—relayed on Twitter being stopped by a police officer and asked if he'd seen "a dude with an assault rifle." Said dude, it was said, may have shot another person earlier in the evening. Several others relayed details regarding a heavy assembly of police officers in the nearby area.
No word has come down the wire in the hours since, though the Statesman via their Twitter account said that the APD watch commander had no information on any shooting.
As with anything on the internets, breaking news as relayed through an informal social network should always be taken with a grain of salt—when it's a matter of potential public safety and the information seems to pass muster, we think it's prudent to err on the side of caution and give our readers a heads-up.
