Man shoots cyclist from car to 'blow off steam'

A 19-year-old has been charged with two counts aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, a second degree felony. According to the Austin Police Department, Merrick David Isaacks has been arrested and charged after firing a shotgun at a cyclist from a car so he could 'blow off steam'. 

The victim, Alonso Solis-Mata, was transported to Dell Seton Medical Center. 

According to the medical staff, pellets from the shotgun blast had entered the victim's brain stem.

According to APD, the incident happened around midnight on Wednesday, June 7, 2017 in the 6300 block of East Riverside Drive. When police officers and ATCEMS arrived on scene, first responders administered CPR and treated the victim for an unknown injury to his back, shoulder, and head after he was struck by what appeared to be a shotgun blast. 

During the investigation, detectives were able to connect this incident to an aggravated assault case that was being investigated by the Family Violence Unit. Detectives learned that a witness in the aggravated assault case was driving Merrick David Isaacks around to help him 'blow off steam' and that Isaacks had shot a shotgun outside the vehicle at about the same time and date that the victim was shot. 

After interviewing the witness, detectives learned that Isaacks threatened this witness with a shotgun if he didn't drive him around after Isaacks had already assaulted his girlfriend. 

The witness complied and drove Isaacks around.

Isaacks told the witness that he "wanted to shoot or kill someone".

The driver convinced him not to open fire, but a few hundred feet down the road, Isaacks "turned his entire body toward the passenger side door and lifted the shotgun to the window as if he was aiming at something and fired one shot,” the affidavit said. The witness told police he believed Isaacks had fired at a cyclist.

After the shooting, Isaacks forced the witness to continue driving for most of the night while he fired the weapon several more times into the air. Isaacks is now being held at the Travis County Jail  on a combined bail that has been set at $250,000