San Antonio mayor's car hit in drive-by shooting, mayor not a target: police

[November 04, 2014]  By Jim Forsyth
 
 SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - Two people were injured and a car belonging to the mayor of San Antonio was damaged when it was caught in crossfire in a drive-by shooting on Monday involving rival gangs, police said.

Mayor Ivy Taylor was not in the vehicle and her parked car was not a target, San Antonio police said.

"During the course of this afternoon's shooting, a vehicle belonging to Mayor Taylor and a building associated with her were hit," San Antonio police said in a statement.

"There is no reason to believe that Mayor Taylor or her property were targets of this attack."

Taylor said the incident showed that "anyone at any time can be touched by crime."

"Neither title, privilege nor office make one immune," she said in a statement.
 

A car carrying four gang members chased down a group of rival gang members, cornering them and opening fire, according to Police Chief William McManus.

About two dozen shots were fired. One man was shot in the leg and another in the abdomen, McManus said.

Photos of the mayor's Nissan Altima posted on the San Antonio Express-News website showed a parked car with one rear window shot open. The car was parked near a business where her husband works, the paper said.

San Antonio City Council in July elected Taylor mayor of the seventh most populous U.S. city, making the Yale graduate the first African-American to hold the post.

Taylor, a housing executive in San Antonio before being elected to City Council in 2009, took over from Julian Castro, who resigned to become housing and urban development secretary in the Obama administration.

(Reporting by Jim Forsyth; Writing by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Eric Walsh and Peter Cooney)

[© 2014 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.]

Copyright 2014 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.