Shooting reported near Air Force base in San Antonio

(The Hill) — U.S. Air Force security guards exchanged gunfire with a person who shot at the main gate of Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland early Saturday, according to a spokesperson for the base. 

An unknown suspect first shot at Air Force Security personnel working the entrance gate to Lackland Air Force base at 2:30 a.m. Security personnel reported the incident, and the base beefed up security, according to a statement from the San Antonio Police Department (SAPD). 

Then a little before 5:00, a sedan stopped near the same entrance and shots were fired at Air Force personnel who then exchanged gunfire with the shooter. 

“The security personnel stated they heard several shots fired as well as the fired rounds go past them,” according to SAPD spokesperson Washington Moscoso. “After this incident, the security personnel added more armed guards as a precaution. Later that same morning, just before 5:00 am, a sedan stopped on Median Base Rd. East of the same entrance gate to the Lackland AFB/Chapman Training Annex.  

“For a second time, shots were fired at the Air Force Security personnel, however, with the additional security personnel present, multiple Air Force personnel returned fire toward the suspect vehicle,” Moscoso added. 

According to the Associated Press, no injuries were reported after the guards returned fire with a car that drove by the entrance around 4:30 a.m. 

The number of rounds fired, how many shooters, and the motive are still unknown. 

“We don’t know what, if anything, started it,” Antosh told the AP. “But it wasn’t an active threat to the installation, and there is no active threat to the installation.”

The entrance gate was closed from 4:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m., but the base was not locked down.

The Hill has reached out to comment from Joint Base Lackland. 

Alongside Lackland, Joint Base San Antonio also hosts Randolph Air Force Base, Fort Sam Houston and the Camp Bullis training camp. 

According to the base's website, Lackland is home to more than 24,000 active duty members and 10,000 Department of Defense civilians. 

Military bases in Texas have seen shootings before, including the 2009 Fort Hood shooting, where a U.S. Army Major shot and killed 13 people and injured 30 others. 

In 2020, a gunman tried to speed through a security gate at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, and he wounded a soldier during his attempt. Security personnel shot and killed the man. In 2016, an airman fatally shot his commander before shooting himself at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland.