Republican and Democratic officials have offered vastly different responses to the Austin mass shooting.
Republican and Democratic officials have offered vastly different responses to the Austin mass shooting. Credit: Shutterstock / Schmidt_Alex

The suspect who killed 3 and injured another 14 at a popular college bar in Austin over the weekend is a former San Antonio resident, KSAT reports.

Ndiaga Diange, 53, along with his wife and two kids, moved from New York to San Antonio in 2017 in search of more space for their family, according to KSAT. He’s reportedly a naturalized citizen originally from Senegal.

However, the couple divorced in 2022, and Diange relocated to Pflugerville, where he lived at the time of the shooting, media reports show. Diange’s ex-wife told ABC News she hadn’t spoken to him in more than four years, and had no prior knowledge of the shooting.

She also told ABC that Diange was religious but didn’t elaborate.

The new information comes at the FBI and Department of Homeland Security continue to investigate the incident as a possible act of terrorism possibly executed in response to U.S.-Israel missile attacks against Iran over the weekend.

The Washington Post, citing anonymous sources, reports that Diange was wearing a hoodie that read “Property of Allah” over a T-shirt bearing an Iranian flag design when he opened fire at Buford’s Backyard Beer Garden on West 6th Street early Sunday morning.

Officers reportedly also found a Quran in his car, the Post reports.

Officials haven’t released the identities of the victims. However, University of Texas at Austin President Jim Davis, in a statement, said the shooting “impacted” members of the “Longhorn family.”

Republicans and Democrats have voiced vastly different responses to the tragedy. Conservatives, including Gov. Greg Abbott, blamed immigration.

“Allowing unvetted immigrants who are hostile to America, who are loyal to our adversaries like Iran, must end,” Abbott tweeted.

Diange first entered the U.S. in 2000 on a tourist visa, according to DHS. He reportedly became a lawful permanent resident six years later after marrying a U.S. citizen. He became a naturalized citizen in 2013.

Meanwhile, State Sen. Roland Gutierrez, a Democrat whose district includes Uvalde, blamed Republicans’ lack of action on gun control for the tragedy.

“We don’t have any type of legislation in Texas that keeps guns out of the hands of people that shouldn’t have them, and that is entirely on Republican policies — people that control this state that have put us in harm’s way and kept us in harm’s way,” Gutierrez told the Current. “Each time we have one of these events happen, Republicans fail to act to help people in this community on this major, important issue.”

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Michael Karlis is a multimedia journalist at the San Antonio Current, whose coverage in print and on social media focuses on local and state politics. He is a graduate of American University in Washington,...