A third victim has died after a mass shooting at an Austin bar that is being investigated as a potential act of terrorism in retaliation for US airstrikes in Iran. Jorge Pederson, a 30-year-old mixed martial arts fighter from Minnesota, had been on life support since the attack, which left more than a dozen others wounded.
The Austin Police Department confirmed Pederson's death on Monday evening. He had been scheduled to make his professional MMA debut on 16 May, according to Ignite Fights, the promoter. The two other victims were identified as Ryder Harrington, 19, a Texas Tech University student, and Savitha Shan, 21, a student at the University of Texas at Austin.
The gunman, 53-year-old Ndiaga Diagne, a Senegalese national and naturalised US citizen, was shot dead by police at the scene. According to the Associated Press, he was wearing a T-shirt with an Iranian flag design under his hoodie. The attack occurred shortly after US and Israeli forces launched large-scale strikes in Iran, killing the country's supreme leader.
Authorities are investigating Diagne's motives and possible links to extremist groups, though they believe he acted alone. FBI agent Alex Doran said there were indicators of a potential nexus to terrorism, but it was too early to make a determination. The shooting is one of more than 55 mass shootings in the US this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
