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A Minnesota-based mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter has been named as the third victim to die in the recent mass shooting at an Austin bar being investigated as a potential act of terrorism in retaliation for US airstrikes in Iran.
The death of 30-year-old Jorge Pederson was announced by the Austin police department on Monday evening. Police told NBC News that Pederson had been on life support after the attack, which left more than a dozen others wounded and ended with officers fatally shooting the gunman.
Pederson days earlier had arranged to make his professional MMA debut on 16 May, the Minnesotan combat sports promoter Ignite Fights wrote Monday on Instagram.
“He was … someone who always came to put on a show,” Ignite’s post said, adding that Pederson had fought three times as an amateur in events arranged by the promoter. “The political strife and senseless violence we have in this world right now is hard to wake up to everyday, and now it’s affected me and many of my friends and loved ones much more directly.
“We all will never get to laugh at his mischievous ways or enjoy his company and conversations.”
The two other victims slain in the shooting at Buford’s bar in downtown Austin on Sunday had previously been identified as Ryder Harrington, 19, and Savitha Shan, 21.
Harrington studied at Texas Tech University. Shan was a student at Austin’s University of Texas.
They died in one of what, as of Tuesday afternoon, was more than 55 mass shootings in the US for the year, according to the Gun Violence Archive. The nonpartisan archive defines a mass shooting as one in which four or more victims are injured or killed.
Investigators named Pederson, Harrington and Shan’s killer as 53-year-old Ndiaga Diagne, a Senegalese national and naturalized US citizen. He was purportedly wearing a T-shirt under his hoodie with an Iranian flag design, the Associated Press reported, citing an unidentified law enforcement official.
US and Israeli forces on Saturday began carrying out lethal, large-scale strikes across Iran, including one which killed the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, at his compound. Iran has retaliated, including by launching missiles toward Israeli and US military facilities in the Middle East.
Authorities have said they are investigating Diagne’s motives and possible links to organized extremist groups, although they added that for now he appeared to have been acting alone.
The FBI’s Alex Doran publicly said on Sunday “there were indicators … on the subject and in his vehicle [of a] potential nexus to terrorism”. But he said it was “still too early to make a determination on that” at the time.
The owner of Buford’s, Bob Woody, released a statement late Monday sending condolences to the victims’ families and praising the swift intervention of law enforcement – who reached the scene 57 seconds after the first emergency call was received.
“I cannot explain the sorrow we feel or imagine the pain these folks are going through,” he said.
“To the first responders: You saved lives. You arrived in under a minute and placed yourselves at risk to stop the terrorist. Your swift and courageous actions saved so many.
This city is proud of the selfless actions by all first responders.”
Woody said his staff was receiving grief counselling, and that FBI agents had been investigating the scene.
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Richard Luscombe contributed reporting
