A 30-year-old former Minnesota high school wrestler and aspiring professional mixed martial artist was among three people killed in a mass shooting outside an Austin bar, authorities and family members said.
Jorge Pederson died Monday after being taken off life support, one day after a gunman opened fire near Buford’s Backyard Beer Garden in the city’s Sixth Street entertainment district. Pederson had moved from Minnesota to Texas just weeks earlier to begin a new career in marketing.
The shooting, which occurred early Sunday, also claimed the lives of Savitha Shan, 21, and Ryder Harrington, 19. More than a dozen others were injured, with two remaining in critical condition as of Tuesday.
Pederson was a 2013 state qualifier for Kerkhoven-Murdock-Sunburg and previously competed for Minnewaska. Beyond the mat, he was preparing to make his professional MMA debut in Minnesota this May, having trained at the Minnesota Martial Arts Academy.
Born in Minneapolis and raised in Glenwood, Pederson was a graduate of North Dakota State University. His mother told The New York Times that her son had recently sold his share in a moving company he founded to relocate to Austin in mid-February for a position at an artificial intelligence marketing firm.
His girlfriend of five years, Olivia Caspers, a 27-year-old nurse, had planned to visit him this coming weekend. Instead, she traveled to Austin with Pederson’s mother immediately following the shooting.
“He was so strong,” Caspers told the Times. “He stayed alive for us to be able to get there and say goodbye to him. I don’t know how he was able to do that, but he did.”
An online fundraiser has been established to assist the family with funeral expenses.