Mitchell Levard Austin, 37, a male, Black/African American resident of Columbus, Texas, was shot late on the night of May 17, 2025, and died shortly thereafter. Around 11:30 p.m., Columbus Police officers were dispatched to the 1100 block of Walnut Street following reports of gunfire. They found Mitchell Levard Austin, 37, wounded; Colorado County EMS transported him to Columbus Community Hospital, where Mitchell Levard Austin, 37, was pronounced dead from his injuries.
The case was immediately treated as a murder investigation, and police appealed for tips from anyone with knowledge of the shooting.
In the first days after the killing, authorities publicly identified the victim as Mitchell Levard Austin, 37, and noted that he had been shot multiple times. Memorial listings and gun-violence registries documented his death in Columbus on May 17, 2025, further anchoring the basic timeline and location of the crime.
Within forty-eight hours, investigators obtained an arrest warrant for an 18-year-old suspect, Jose Raul Quezada III of Columbus. On May 19, around 11 a.m., members of the Gulf Coast Violent Offenders Task Force tracked Jose Raul Quezada III to a hotel in Houston and arrested him without incident. He was arrested in connection with the shooting death of Mitchell Levard Austin, 37, and charged with murder, a first-degree felony, as the investigation continued.
Local reporting emphasized that detectives were still gathering information even after the arrest, seeking witnesses and additional details about events on Walnut Street that night. Public tributes and obituary notices for Mitchell Levard Austin, 37, reflected his ties to the area while news outlets and archives recorded the essential facts of the case, including the arrest of a named suspect and the ongoing nature of the proceedings.
