Law&Crime Sidebar - 9 Creepy Details About 'Disturbed' Target Store Shooter

Episode Date: August 13, 2025

Three people are dead, including a child, after Ethan Blaine Nieneker allegedly opened fire in a Target parking lot in Austin, Texas. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber analyzes the gunman's potential motives and his extensive criminal history, as well as how the victims are being remembered with retired NYPD detective David Sarni.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: Stay Informed, Stay Safe – Check Public Records with TruthFinder now at https://www.truthfinder.com/lcsidebarHOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger, Christina O'Shea & Jay CruzScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. When officers arrived, they were met with three people that were shot inside the parking lot of Target. We have three people that are deceased. This is a very sad day for Austin. It's a very sad day for us all. It happened out of nowhere. Three people shot dead, including a four-year-old little girl.

in a target parking lot in Austin, Texas, happened in broad daylight. And the suspected shooter is a man with a reported history of violence and mental illness. Here's what we know so far. Welcome to Sidebar. Presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. I really hate to say this, but we have another mass shooting that we have to talk about. This is heartbreaking. It is chaotic. We are still left with so many questions. We do have some answers too, but just trying to make sense of this is very, very tough. I'm talking about the shooting that happened in broad daylight.

Out of all places, a target parking lot in North Austin, Texas, left three innocent people dead, including a four-year-old child. The alleged shooter, this is a man with a reported criminal history and possibly severe mental illness. It was a typical Monday, August 11, 2025, back-to-school shot. filled the parking lot of a North Austin target, parents, kids, employees, and then gunshots. 2.15 p.m. Austin police received frantic 911 calls reporting there was an active shooter in the parking lot of that target store near Research Boulevard and Olin Road. And in a matter of minutes, chaos exploded. By the time officers arrived, three people had been shot. One died at the scene,

two more died later at the hospital. And as for the alleged shooter, here's office. Austin Police Department Chief Lisa Davis. The suspect fled the scene, stole a car from the scene, took that car, wrecked that car, then hijacked another car. He was then found by Austin PD in South Austin, where he was taken into custody after a tasing. It's incredible. It's incredible. They launched a citywide manhunt.

And we're going to get back to the suspected shooter in a minute. But let me just talk about the victims. Okay? We have Hector Leopold Martinez Machuca, 24 years old, target employee, known for being friendly, hardworking. He was simply collecting carts when he was gunned down, just doing his job. Adam Chow, 65 years old, was sitting in a vehicle with his wife and four-year-old granddaughter. His wife survived.

He did not. And as for his granddaughter, Astrid Fung, four years old, she was shot in the back seat. She died shortly after. Horrible. It's horrible. According to authorities, at this point, it appears the victims were just chosen at random. And before we go any further, including what we seem to know right now about the suspected shooter, I want to bring on retired NYPD detective Dave Sarny, who is also an adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

Dave, this is an awful scene. First, let's start. How do police respond to an active shooter scene? How do they process the scene? as for well thank you for having me again this is seems to be so repetitive the scene is once you get the calls and they're getting numerous calls they're going in looking for you know hopefully description the shooter has gone out over over 901 so they're going there in a mass response to locate and stop the threat that's what you're looking to do and that's the key to

all of this you're trying to stop the killing stop the threat and I repeat this unfortunately so many times. But that's the mission of the police at that time. As far as aiding individuals who've been shot, that's not the concern at this point. The concern is to find the shooter and stop that stop the threat. Let's go back to the suspect. Okay. So reportedly the shooter fled the scene in the chat and the Chow's Toyota. Okay. That alone pretty scary. But as you heard the chief of police say, the man had crashed the stolen car. Then he ran. He didn't run very far because apparently broke into a nearby car dealership, where he allegedly assaulted employees, stole a second vehicle, continued his chaotic flight through Austin. He crashed again. And this time when police

found him, he was reportedly naked, clutching a Bible, and reportedly claiming he was Jesus. Officers apparently tased him, took him into custody. So let's talk about the suspect, okay? Ethan Blaine Nynaker, 32 years old, USA Today reporting he worked at a restaurant, he lived by himself. But now I want to get into more of a detailed timeline per reporting from USA today. Okay. So following the shootings at 2.15 p.m., again, the suspect, Ethan Ninaker, they say you go to 220 p.m. So while driving the forerunner, Ninaker allegedly encounters a parked water truck, opens the

driver's door, assaults the driver, forces him out of the truck before attempting to operate the vehicle himself. Now, apparently couldn't figure out how to drive it, then chased down a man while holding a pistol, only to return the forerunner, drive away, 2.25 p.m. Police stated that Ninaker, again, the suspect, crashed the four runner into a Volkswagen, ended up on top of an SUV, exited the forer runner, attacked the Volkswagen's driver, pushed her out of the car, took control of the vehicle, drove off. 2.34 p.m. Authorities say he then approached a Waymo autonomous car, tried unsuccessfully to break inside before getting back inside the Volkswagen

and fleeing. 2.37 p.m. police reported that he hurled a brick through the window of a house belonging to somebody that he knew from Bible study. 258 p.m. Austin police then get a call from a South Austin resident who sees a man running into a portable restroom and then leaving it completely naked. 306 p.m. officers locate the suspect, Nynaker, who was reportedly naked, holding a Bible. And when he refused to obey their orders, police deployed a taser, took him into custody. The clothing that was matching the suspect's description, including a Hawaiian shirt, was found inside that portable restroom.

Dave, talk to me about this chase and talk to me how police respond to a chase like this. Well, this is where you're going and it's, it's manic. I mean, the shooter is a manic individual going from place to place. And they're just trying to track down the 911 calls. and that's how they're trying to coordinate somehow about this individual. So you have a description, you have a possible direction of flight in the vehicle. You're trying to locate that vehicle. Now he's moved on to other vehicles.

So you're trying to coordinate a way in which, where was he last seen? And because we won't know where he is until we locate him. And that's the one thing about this. He's all over the place. I mean, he's gone from car to car, damaging windows on this absolute manic, violent spree at this point. And it's fortunate, for the most part, they were able to locate him. I mean, that's really what it comes down to. We could, unfortunately, the deaths, you can't stop.

That was the one thing. But they did, were able to at least apprehend him before any more killing would take place. The taser is going to be utilized. I'm going to presume since he's naked, they didn't see a weapon on him. They thought that was a way of stopping him, or at least limiting his movements by doing that taser. I can never tell when people, the type of force you use, they utilize that type of force, electronic device such as a taser. So that's what they did.

Would it have been reasonable to shoot him at that point? If they saw the gun, if they saw the gun, there's a chance that could have happened. But in this case, they did use a taser. By the way, we'll get into a little bit more about mental health here. But it's so random, it's so strange. There is a part of it where if the allegations are true, it seems planned. It seems there was a goal here, whatever kind. But the escape was incredibly sloppy.

Does that give investigators a sense of what the plan was here? Well, that's the thing. When you, these shooters, unfortunately, do start with an agenda of some sort, and they execute their agenda, and then the escape is the next part. And this is one of those where he had an idea of what he was going to do. He shot these people. He had no relationship with. I don't know why he did what he did there, but he did execute those individuals. He did murder them. And then after that, this would be something that would come out maybe a trial if and when there is a trial as to why he lifted the way he did after this. What is the public's role in alerting authorities to apprehend a suspect? Obviously, you have to be careful. You don't want to approach somebody like this. But you have to imagine it was the reporting of people in real time that police are able to locate this guy and track him down and arrest him in a very quick, in very quick fashion. Yes. And that's the thing.

I mean, we tell people 911, 911, 911 description, location, keeping yourself, keeping yourself safe, keeping yourself out of harm's way. You know, some people want to be that good Samaritan in this situation. I can't tell people what not to do, but one of the bent things they should do and must do is call 911 with what's going on, a clear accurate description, what's going on and an accurate description of the perpetrator involved. Let's talk about this guy. Ethan Blaine Nynaker, right?

So as I said, 32 years old, worked at a restaurant, lived by himself. That's the reporting from USA Today. No stranger to law enforcement. Apparently he had been arrested multiple times in the past. We're talking about charges of domestic violence, DUI, criminal mischief, assault, drug possession. He was previously convicted several years back of assault, causing bodily injury in a family violence case. He was apparently sentenced to just a short jail sentence for that one.

Other cases were either dismissed or unresolved. And we were also able to locate that information on Truthfinder, the powerful background checker that we used to verify details in our stories. I will tell you, the criminal history section is long. full of charges that he has faced over the years. And by the way, law and crime, we partner with Truthfinder. We use it to get details on people involved in our stories. But even if you don't work in true crime, it can be an excellent resource to give you some peace of mind. It's one of the largest public record search services in the United States. And with the

paid subscription service, you can get access to unlimited reports about almost anyone. And by the way, right now, you can get 50% off of your first month of confidential background reports. Just go to truthfinder.com slash LC sidebar. And beyond nine of criminal history, there is reported mental illness. In fact, the New York Times reported that Chief Davis had said that Nynaker had been placed on emergency holds in the past. We're talking about mental health reports, which begs the question, how did a man like this have access to a firearm, let alone, how is he out? But how did he have access to a firearm if he actually did do this? And I will tell you, it's a question without a clear answer, at least not yet,

anyway. Dave, do you have an answer? Well, from my understanding that he might have obtained this gun from a family member, I don't know how that happened. But it comes back to the same issues we go over, over time and time again. The police can do what they can and make the apprehensions and arrest for his prior crimes. We're going to talk about the crimes then. What happens now is the criminal justice system, and discretion is a big, vital part of the criminal justice system, is this discretion. It's discretion up to the prosecutor, and the judge whether or not to pursue this case further.

And here's what comes down to it. I think you have to start now looking at when people are arrested and have had a mental history, there need to be remanded, stay in custody pending an overall psychological evaluation, so then we can determine whether or not they should remain incarcerated to get the help they need.

We keep letting people out with mental health issues. I've arrested people with mental health issues. They're back out doing the same thing over and over again. We see this time and time. time again, there needs to be legislation in dealing with mentally ill people who have been in contact with the police, who have been arrested, who have a mental history where they have to be evaluated. It's a must to evaluate and remand them pending that evaluation. Because more times and not, we're seeing people are not getting the mental health help they need once they

leave the custody of corrections or the custody of the police. They go out, do their own thing, and this is what happens. And we're seeing it more often than not. Not every person with mental health issues is a criminal, but we're seeing many criminals with mental health issues that are not being addressed when they are in the custody of the criminal justices. Let me explore that a little bit more because my understanding is in Texas, they don't currently require background checks on private firearm sales, so including sales at gun shows. And even people with mental illness or criminal histories, there could be an avenue where they end up getting weapons. Now, the law, my understanding is, says you can't sell to somebody who was adjudicated, right, legally declared mentally ill or involuntarily committed. There will be people who question why Nainiker wasn't institutionalized.

And Texas law generally, again, my understanding, only allows involuntary mental health commitment under strict criteria. It's kind of a high burden. You have to have a violent act to have occurred if they pose an imminent danger. Now, Dave, do you see this as a very, very unfortunate opening taking these allegations is true. Yeah, and that's, you know, when it comes to gun laws, and again, we go back and forth, you know, do you have a right to a firearm? You know, every state has the authority and

ability to regulate their possession of firearms. New York State has a very stringent one. Texas is obviously less so. Would this have stopped him from committing this crime? We're not sure. You know, the allocation of, you know, guns are out there legally and illegally. That's the one thing. People who obtain firearm, most of the time use them for legal purposes. I have a firearm or a retired detective. I have a firearm and I treat that firearm with respect and I lock it up on the lock and key

when it's not available to me or what it's not necessary, not available, not needed if I'm not doing something with it, you know, working or target practice. But, you know, when it comes to that, we have to maybe look at mental health as being a way of avoiding people from getting that firearm.

But it's going to have to be documented. And we have documented told, we have documented things where he had emergency home, holds, but he's released. So they may not appear on a particular form if he actually would obtain a gun permit legally. And I'm talking about Texas. In general, New York, it takes a very long time to get one. It's not very easy. But Texas has less stringent laws with that. Would this be a precursor to maybe dealing with a mentally ill and having a red flag law when it comes to domestic violence? That's a possibility. But we just keep seeing time and time again,

legislation should be made and it doesn't seem to go through for whatever per regular reason and as for a motive police sergeant Nathan Sexton said their quote was really no reason whatsoever given Dave how do you get information from the suspect himself here particularly if you're talking about a potential history of mental illness well you're gonna go back to his friends colleagues co-workers family if you can get an idea of where he was going, apparently a co-worker of his said he was rambling on, kind of manic when he last saw him. He said, this is, you know, people with mental illness aren't always doing crime.

And that's what I think would probably happen here. He's always had an issue. But he has been arrested. He has been convicted. He has a mental history. We need to look and address the situations as they stand. You know, law enforcement, police can only do so much and make the apprehension. It's up to the correctional facilities, the correctional system and the court system to deal with these individuals better.

Will you get a better answer? They probably throw blood to find out of his medication or any drugs or anything on those lines. But when he's deemed mentally ill and he may be deemed incompetent, that might be a problem down the road for trial. But the reality is we're seeing this over and over again. We need to find ways in which you have to meet out. that justice. You have to meet it out by getting people to help you need. Obviously, you can talk to the people who are around him for more information. But getting information from him himself could be particularly difficult. Obviously, if he lawyers up, if there's a

competency issue, you run into a roadblock. But even assuming you don't, and assuming he talks freely with you, while there could be a legal issue put forward by a defense attorney, whether he was knowingly and voluntarily making statements if he has some sort of mental illness. But the question becomes finding out information from the suspect themselves, you know, look at the state in which he was reportedly found, naked holding the Bible, saying he was Jesus. How does, how do law enforcement get credible information from a suspect themselves? Well, that's the problem.

If this person is mentally ill, you could sit there and have a conversation. You can interview him, interrogate him, and get a feel for, for where he's coming from, a little record building and the like. But, you know, it's going to depend on what he tells you. And if it's going to be rambling statements, that's something that's going to be utilized for court purposes later on. And it may not get you the absolute answer as to why he did what he did. That's where what he says, is there documentation?

Did he write anything down? Did he put anything in social media? Did you have something else to adhere to finding out where his mindset was to do this? He had mental illness, we understand, but what drove him? to randomly shoot and kill people. We may never know that answer. You may get something from him, but is that going to be considered a valid answer

when it comes to prosecution? And they could look through his digital devices, right? They could get a warrant for that. They could get a warrant for his house. That may provide a little bit more information. Yeah, that definitely, that's what I said when he talked about social media. You're gonna scrub, you can do a propology

like we always do. And that's the thing that doesn't change. But you always want to get it for the word of mouth from him. And, you know, we've seen this again with other active shooters. They do leave things behind to give a motive. It's horrific to see to go through this. But this is what we do all the time. It's nothing that we haven't done in an investigative step to find out the reason as to why.

Because reality is investigators are truth finders. We want to find out the truth as to what happened. But given the fact of his mental state, will it be absolute? That will depend. Now, as of this recording, Nynaker is being held at the Travis County Jail. He faces multiple charges. We're talking capital murder by terror threat, capital murder of a person under 10 years of age, first-degree murder.

We've been talking about what the investigation looks like now in order to understand if he did this, why he did this, building more evidence towards a legal case. But we have to talk the aftermath, right? So a GoFundMe was set up for Astrid Fung's family, quickly raised tens of thousands of dollars for funeral costs. Target issued a statement expressing heartbreak and outrage, offering counseling services to employees and their families. The Chow family released a statement to ABC News saying that Adam Chow was the heart and steady backbone of the family. The family said Astrid, who referred to her grandfather as gong gong was pure silliness and joy.

She loved singing, dancing, making us laugh. We are heartbroken, missed them both so much. Mayor Kirk Watson said this is a devastating situation. my heart is with the victims and their families. While this remains an active and ongoing investigation, what I'll say is that this was a sickening, cowardly act of gun violence. There were vigils that were held. There were flowers that piled up outside the store. Strangers mourn for people they never met. And it's a reminder, yet again, that the victims of mass shootings are more than statistics. They're someone's child, someone's coworker,

someone's grandparent, and they have become tragically familiar. This one stood out for the sheer randomness that we're talking about. But I will tell you, right now, Dave, when you speak to the families, when you speak to the victim's families, what is this journey like for them? You can't even imagine. This is something that you never want to deal with death notifications. you never want to deal with dealing with having this because as an investigator it's probably the hardest thing to do and they never train you and they never really educate you and how to do it each person handles it differently and each death is severely tragic in the sense of the way the violent acts that happened to them to end their lives and then trying to you know trying

to comfort at least to empathize the difference between sympathy and empathy is very important empathize and try to understand what they're going through and be there as best you can throughout the process. But when it comes to at least police work, this is only, unfortunately, one of dozens that they deal with every day. This family is going to have to deal with this the rest of their lives. And I don't think there's anything that really heals that or makes them feel better.

You could do the best you can as an investigator as the police and along those lines and giving all these kind words and the like. But they never get away from this. They never is going to see that family member ever again. And it hurts the soul as an investigator that, you know, you do everything you can. But regardless of what you've done, they're still going to have to deal with the death of their love for. Let me ask you this. We have a situation where they're going to be investigating him.

They're going to look into, like you said, his friends, family, coworkers, whoever might be there. It's very difficult for people to know if they saw some. something, what a warning sign is, a red flag, when people should report something. They may come out now and say, you know what, now that we're looking at what he's accused of doing, I have some information. But in your perspective, when should people reach out to authorities? When should you say, you know what, you don't want to be too premature, false alarm, don't get involved versus if you see something, you say something. It's hard to know that line, right? And I don't know if people saw any kind of warning signs here per se.

But tell us what we should be thinking about. You should always think, you know, if a person's changed drastic, their emotional state, they become more agitated. We're seeing precursors. We've seen throughout the years active shooter protocols and not only active shooter protocols, but active shooters and how they become that active shooter. We can always see the beginnings, the change in emotions, becoming more violent, depression, things of that nature. The reality is someone has to reach out. I mean, you can't let this go anymore because we always say, no, we never know when

they're going to commit that shooting, but we always see what's coming on beforehand. And that's why when you deal with people of mental illness and they've been in the custody of the police department, police agency or the criminal justice system, we need to look at them prior to. This is where you have to do it. We can't do it the aftermath because we keep seeing it over and over again the same issues. But if they have been in touch or have been contacted or have been involved, in the police by being arrested. Here is the way in which we can really shape and form the

betterment of society and getting these people to help they need before they commit these type of crimes. He was already arrested for violent domestic incidents. He already was DOI. We already had emergency holds on them. Now we have to start really assessing that. We have all of the tools there and availability. We just have to apply the resources and the availability of mental health workers in the correctional facilities, a real evaluation, a psychological evaluation, that you can bring to the judge, bring to the prosecutor, decide whether or not to remand him pending a mental health evaluation and pending his or her release from custody

because they've determined that he or she is going to be a danger to themselves and or others. His coworker thought he was rambling. But they all kind of, oh, he's always odd, but that oddity now became multiple murders. So watch what people are doing. Be cognizant of that and make the notifications accordingly. Dave Sarni, thank you so much for coming on.

I wish we were talking about a different case, but this is the reality we live in right now with this kind of shooting. We'll hopefully get more information and more answers to a lot of the questions that we have. Appreciate you taking the time. Thank you very much. Stay safe. All right. So before we wrap things up, quick programming alert, I'm actually going to be hosting Cuomo tonight on News Nation at 8 p.m. Eastern hope everybody can tune in.

One of the things we're hoping to do if we have time is take. your calls live. So if you have any questions, any comments about any of the true crime stories that I've covered here on Sidebar, we'd love to talk to you live. That's 8 p.m. Eastern tonight on News Nation. I'll be filling in for Chris Cuomo. And that's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar. Everybody, thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you should get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. You can binge all episodes of this long crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.