AUSTIN -- The state trooper who initially confronted Fausto Cardenas on the south steps of the State Capitol swore in a written affidavit that the accused gunman was reloading at the time.
Trooper Husain Roussel wrote that he was in the Rotunda when he heard what sounded like gunshots. When he emerged from the south doors of the Capitol, he wrote, he "did not notice anyone else except a white male subject that I later identified as Fausto Cardenas reloading a magazine."
Roussel went on to explain the two had a conversation during which he noticed Cardenas had a pistol in his waistband and that empty shell casings littered the area in which the two were standing.
Cardenas was arrested and faces felony charges of deadly conduct. He is being held in the Travis County Jail on $250,000 bond.
