These posts are based on our Good Guy with a Gun calendar. Today’s post is essentially the same as the calendar version.
Pepper spray isn’t a gun, but it’s a significant weapon. It blinds you, may make you drop to the floor, and it gives initiative to the man who sprayed you. It can be considered “less than lethal” on its own, but someone being attacked with it has to consider what might come next.
A 40-year-old who worked at the Waterloo Flats apartments in southeast Austin was out in the parking lot just after two on a Monday afternoon when a man ran up and, quoting the Austin PD, “randomly began assaulting the employee and further threatened him with pepper spray, which led the employee to shoot his attacker.”
That man was 39-year-old Adrian Lopez. He was pronounced dead at the scene, thirty-four minutes after the call went out.
Sources
Primary
Homicide Investigation in the 1300 block of South Pleasant Valley Road (APD news release via the Internet Archive)
Adrian Rene Lopez Obituary (1984 - 2024) (King-Tears Mortuary)
News
CBS Austin covered the shooting the day it happened and again after police identified the man who was killed.
Man killed in shooting at SE Austin apartment complex (Day-of)
Man fatally shot after allegedly assaulting employee at SE Austin apartment complex (Identification)
FOX 7 Austin ran two as well.
Man killed in shooting at apartment complex in Southeast Austin (Day-of)
Employee shot, killed man attacking him at SE Austin apartment complex: APD (Identification)
So did KVUE.
APD: Man shot to death at southeast Austin apartment complex (Day-of)
Police say man shot to death at southeast Austin apartment attacked a complex employee (Identification)
APD identifies man killed in east Austin apartment complex shooting (KXAN Austin)
Shooting incident at Waterloo Flats results in one fatality (Austin Journal)