No arrests and few details released after shooting at Lackland base gate

The gunman or gunmen who exchanged fire with security forces outside the gates of Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland in Texas are still at large more than a week later, according to authorities.

Police are still investigating the predawn shooting at the Chapman Annex Gate on Aug. 17, and no arrests have been made, San Antonio Police Department spokeswoman Ximena Alvarez said in an email.

Alvarez declined to provide further information about the incident on Monday.

At least one person opened fire from a vehicle driving past the gate near the base’s Chapman Training Annex around 4:30 a.m. on Aug. 17, officials said. Security forces soldiers returned fire, and the vehicle fled.

Stefanie Antosh, public affairs director for the 502nd Air Base Wing in Lackland, referred questions about the shooting to the police department. Antosh would not say whether bullet holes or other damage from the shooting were found at the gate or elsewhere on the base.

Antosh told the San Antonio Express-News after the shooting that it was not “an active threat to the facility.” The base closed the gate for several hours, but the entire base was not locked down. It is not known how many shots were fired or if more than one person in the vehicle opened fire.

Best known as a training center for pilots who want to become combat controllers, special reconnaissance pilots or tactical air traffic controllers, Chapman Annex is named for Medal of Honor recipient Master Sgt. John Chapman, a combat controller who died on March 4, 2002, while fighting al-Qaeda terrorists on a mountaintop in Afghanistan during Operation Anaconda.

At Lackland, the Air Force conducts basic military training and also hosts training activities for enlisted personnel, security forces, special operations forces, and the Inter-American Air Forces Academy, which provides professional military education, aircrew training, and technical training for personnel from allied and partner nations in the Americas.