The Texas Capitol building in Austin was partly evacuated on Tuesday amid an active shooter alert. Several state representatives and local media outlets posted videos from the scene, showing chaos. Officers could be seen escorting people off the campus.
Protest organizer Melody Tremallo, as per KFox 14, said she was shown a video of the shooter threat.
“The captain came up to me and informed me that there was likely going to be… likely going to clear out the Capitol building on the grounds due to an imminent shooter threat. I was shown the video of somebody whose rhetoric basically went to the effect of…,” Tremallo said.
Reporter Yami Virgin, who was on the scene, posted a video on Facebook.”We have been asked to evacuate amid an active shooter threat,” she could be heard saying.
“The Texas Capitol grounds are now being EVACUATED due to an ACTIVE SH00TER threat, as Democrats protest the new U.S. House Maps,” one person posted on X, platform formerly known as Twitter.
CBS Austin reported that ‘parts of the Texas Capitol grounds were evacuated and closed to visitors on Tuesday evening after reports of an active shooter threat’.
Democrat Nicole Collier slept in the building
Texas state Representative Nicole Collier chose an unusual form of protest this week, spending the night inside the Capitol rather than submit to police monitoring ordered by Republican leaders amid an escalating fight over redistricting.
Collier, a Fort Worth Democrat now serving her seventh term, was among the lawmakers who recently returned to Austin after a two-week walkout that blocked the GOP from advancing its proposed congressional maps. The plan, pushed with backing from former President Donald Trump, aims to redraw districts in ways that would give Republicans an advantage in the 2026 House elections.
To keep Democrats from staging another quorum-denying exodus, Republican leadership directed state law enforcement to shadow members of the minority caucus. Collier rejected the arrangement, opting instead to remain overnight in the Capitol.
On Tuesday, she posted a photo of herself curled up under a blanket in a chair, writing on X: “This was my night, bonnet and all, in the #txlege.” The image quickly circulated as a symbol of Democrats’ resistance to the GOP’s redistricting push.
(With inputs from Reuters)
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