AUSTIN, Texas — A man is in custody after allegedly attacking someone with a machete near Auditorium Shores on Tuesday.
Austin police say 24-year-old Ashton Kaine Talley was arrested and charged following the alleged attack. Records show Talley faces two charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon along with one count of evading arrest. Talley remains in the Travis County Jail without bond.
Meanwhile, police say the victim, Seth Gott, is in an unknown condition but is stable.
What happened?
The Austin Police Department (APD) confirmed that just before 10 a.m. Tuesday, they received multiple calls reporting an attack involving a machete not far from Auditorium Shores and The Long Center for the Performing Arts.
"We heard a woman just over here screaming, and she had her dog. She's a jogger, and she was screaming. So I called 911," witness Nathan Kurten said.
Kurten is a frequent visitor to the park. He said what he saw didn't feel real.
"I yelled out to the guy, hoping he would stop and run away or do whatever. I yelled out and just said, 'Hey, I've got 911 on the phone,'" Kurten said. "He did stop hitting the guy, but then he started chasing me with his machete."
Kurten said the attack was gruesome.
"The victim was on the ground and he was actually crawling on all fours, and the guy was striking him. And then, you know, he kind of rolled over on his back and he was still striking him, and he just didn't look like he was going to stop," Kurten said.
An affidavit obtained by KVUE stated that the victim, Seth Gott, had more than a dozen cuts all over his body, including a large cut across his back, an almost complete amputation of his left hand, multiple cuts on fingers of his right hand and a large cut across his jaw near one of his ears.
The affidavit states that multiple Good Samaritans applied pressure to Gott's injuries as he lay incapacitated and losing a large amount of blood.
A witness told police there was no interaction between Gott and Talley. According to the affidavit, the witness said Gott "walked by Talley, Talley stood up, pulled out a machete and just started 'hacking'" Gott. Gott attempted to get away, but Talley chased after him, according to the witness. Gott then fell to the ground, and Talley allegedly continued to strike him with the machete. The witness said Talley then began chasing other people and attempted to attack them as well.
According to the affidavit, multiple witnesses told police that Talley had fled over the Pfluger Pedestrian Bridge. Officers ran across the bridge and eventually caught up with Talley, yelling at him to stop running. Initially, Talley continued running toward the intersection of West Cesar Chavez Street and Walter Seaholm Drive, but he eventually stopped, complied with the officers' commands and was arrested. The affidavit states that Talley had blood on his face, hands and clothes but had no injuries.
When an APD officer interviewed Talley after his arrest, the affidavit states that Talley was "slow to respond to questions, seemed overly confused and was having difficulty concentrating on his responses." He could only say that someone had ran into him and that the blood on his body was from the man who ran into him. The affidavit states that Talley was "showing to not have any emotion and appeared to be having a mental health issue or had used some form of narcotic," though Talley told the police neither was true.
The affidavit states that an APD officer interviewed Gott, who said he believed Talley had ran into him really hard, causing Talley to fall to the ground. Gott said when Talley got up and turned around, Gott realized Talley had a machete.
Gott told police that Talley swung the machete at him more than 10 times and that while doing so, Talley said nothing and had a blank expression on his face.