Sixth Street mass shooting: Victim's family speaks following opening statements

Family of murder victim speaks out

The murder trial for 21-year-old De'Ondre White continued Tuesday with opening statements. He is accused of killing 25-year-old Douglas Kantor during a mass shooting on Sixth Street in June 2021. His family is now speaking out.

AUSTIN, Texas - The family of a man shot and killed on Sixth Street in 2021 spoke out following opening statements in the trial of his accused killer.

Opening statements were heard in the courtroom Tuesday morning in the trial for 21-year-old De’Ondre White who is charged with the murder of 25-year-old Douglas Kantor.

White is also facing 14 counts of aggravated assault for the others he injured during the shooting.

Adrianna, Kantor’s fiancé, was planning a future with him.

"I just miss my best friend over 10 years with somebody and expecting to spend the next seventy years with them and that's just ripped out from underneath you," Adrianna said.

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"I blame Austin, and I blame the person who shot him. I blame the people running Austin Adler and the City Council and those people I blame, it's their fault. They have my son's blood on their hands."

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Kantor had just graduated and went to Austin with his childhood friends to celebrate.

"Can you imagine she was building a life with him, now she's back in Michigan selling the house," Douglas Kantor’s mother Julia Kantor said.

On June 12, 2021, Kantor was shot on Sixth Street and ended up dying.

Kantor’s final moments were shown in court Tuesday. The video showed Kantor running to an officer holding his friend’s hand. He had just been shot twice. As police were treating his wounds, his friend told the officers, "Please, he’s my best friend."

"It was hard today to see that clip of my son just in pain and asking for help," Julia Kantor said.

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Loved ones of Doug Kantor invited the other victims' family and friends to join them on the corner of 6th and Neches.

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"Being in that courtroom and seeing that, it just changes your entire perspective of what the loss is when you see somebody that you love suffering mortally," Douglas Kantor’s brother Nicholas Kantor said.

"They have no future," Julia Kantor said.

In court, the state said White was on Sixth Street with a group of friends when they bumped into a different group, things escalated, and then White alone drew his gun and shot eight times into the crowd.

"Doug died because of these people that he had never seen or met before his life that brought guns and used them on Sixth Street that night," state attorney Jean Sullivan said.

De’Ondre White trial: Opening statements

The murder trial of De’Ondre White picked up with opening statements and witness testimony. White was arrested in 2021 following a mass shooting on Sixth Street that injured over a dozen people and killed one person.

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White’s defense attorney told the jury White and his friends were on Sixth Street that weekend to hang out, but they encountered members of a gang and the reason White shot his weapon was to protect he and his friends from what happened moments before.

"One of them pulled a weapon out of his waistband and Mr. White felt that he had no choice but to defend himself and his friends," defense attorney William Browning said.

"It's a lifestyle, it wasn't like one freak thing that happened one night, this is what these kids, gang members, whatever you want to call them, this is what they live to do, this is what they were aspiring to be, they wanted to be cool by shooting each other, so I don't think there's any innocence in that courtroom on the defense side," Nicholas Kantor said.

White pleaded not guilty in court Tuesday. The trial resumes Wednesday morning.