FBI finds Austin shooter acted alone, no foreign terror link found

The FBI said there is no evidence that the Austin bar shooter was supported or directed by a foreign terrorist group, narrowing the case around Ndiaga Diagne as a lone actor and pushing investigators back to the harder question of motive.

That conclusion, announced in a May 7 update, recasts the March 1 attack outside Buford’s Backyard Beer Garden on West Sixth Street, where three people were killed, 15 others were injured and Diagne died after an exchange of gunfire with Austin police. The shift matters because mass shootings are often swallowed immediately into the language of terrorism, long before the evidence can support it, and those early labels can intensify fear far beyond the crime scene.

Investigators said Diagne was 53 years old, born in Senegal and a naturalized U.S. citizen as of April 2013. They said he legally bought a handgun in August 2017 and a rifle in October 2017, and both weapons were used in the attack. The FBI has also been examining possible personal grievances and Diagne’s expressed admiration for Iran’s supreme leader after U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, part of an effort to understand what drove him without assuming a foreign network was behind the violence.

The investigation has drawn on more than 150 FBI personnel, along with multiple field offices and headquarters divisions. Investigators have recovered more than 2,000 digital images, processed CCTV and other camera footage, served about 38 subpoenas and executed eight search warrants, according to an earlier March 6 update. FBI and Austin Police Department investigators said they are still analyzing physical and digital evidence, interviewing witnesses and looking for any possible associates while also supporting victims and families.

The case has unfolded against a broader backdrop of public safety concerns in Austin. In December 2025, APD arrested Derek Austin Gillespie in a separate investigation into multiple explosive incidents across Central and South Austin, a months-long case that involved local, state and federal agencies. The city has seen how quickly violence can trigger anxiety about wider threats, making careful law-enforcement messaging especially important when evidence does not point to terrorism.

FBI investigators are still asking the public for information through a dedicated tip page. For Austin’s survivors and the families of the dead, the central facts are already devastating; the latest update simply makes clear that the search for answers now turns inward, toward Diagne’s life, choices and the violence he brought to West Sixth Street.