Details emerge in fatal shootings at auto detail shop

Gunman shot dead after killing one, wounding several.

Tech and academia

Online, through the Fishes of Texas project, UT researchers are keeping track of records of Texas fish samples not only at UT, but also at dozens of muse- ums around the country — the oldest being a fish at the Smithsonian that was jarred in the 1850s.

“The museum database is an eclectic collection made by diverse people with diverse interests,” said Dean Hendrickson, curator of ich- thyology and an author of the Fishes of Texas project. “They collected fish however they could.”

“Its greatest value is to provide snapshots in time of what Texas fish fauna was like,” he said.

Some of the jarred fish are now extinct or near-extinct; some are proof that a cer- tain species has appeared in a particular waterway. The warehouse is stuffed to the gills— one area has stacks of boxes of preserved fish yet to be cataloged — and taken together, the collection gives clues about the shifts in spe- cies distribution over time.

But, Hendrickson said, “for all this rich history, we don’t have real good data on what is here now. Anglers have a much better feel. They’re taking pictures like crazy, and there are a whole lot of anglers catching a whole lot of fish.”

FishBrain, which calls itself the world’s largest free-touse app and social network for anglers, has more than 130,000 users in Texas.

The company is providing data from more than 50,000 catches in Texas to Hendrickson and Cohen, who initiated the partnership.

No money is changing hands, but Hendrickson said the university has to abide by certain confidenti- ality rules regarding the pub- lishing of the data: Favorite fishing holes will be hard to spot, for example, because UT has to blur maps.

“We’re proud to be part of such a significant milestone in the relationship between technology and academia,” said Johan Attby, chief exec- utive of FishBrain. “Texas and the surrounding states make up a significant part of our user base, and so the preservation and study of the area’s aquatic life is very important to us.”

Cohen, the manager of UT’s ichthyology collection, who also works on the Fishes of Texas project (and who is so taken with fish that in his spare time he makes fish art), said the influx of data will help “document how species’ ranges are chang- ing over time in a scientifi- cally defensible way.”

The photos are especially important — amateur anglers have been known to mis- identify their catch — but Hendrickson and Cohen, the latest in a long line of UT naturalists, said there is no replacement for examin- ing the fish itself.

They’re still happy to accept your packed, frozen fish, soon to be jarred for posterity.

A day after two people were killed in shootings in Houston, details of what hap- pened were clearer Monday.

A man came into a Hous- ton auto detail shop and began shooting Sunday, killing a man known to be a cus- tomer and putting a neigh- borhood on lockdown before being killed by a SWAT officer, police said.

Several peo p le were wounded, including a man authorities initially described as another suspect because he was present and armed. Police said later that they were investigating further whether he played any role.

Three other people — two of them male and one female — were hospitalized with injuries that police said were not believed to be life-threatening.

Two officers who were shot were released from the hospital later Sunday.

Police, who said they have no indication yet of a motive, said they got their first call about the shootings around 10:15 a.m.

The victim in the auto shop, described as a man in his 50s, had just driven there.

Within a minute or two, the gunman came in and started shooting, authorities said. Others in the shop ran out to take cover nearby and call for help.

Neighbors described hear- ing many gunshots, and some of the victims taken to the hospital were shot while driv- ing their vehicles. Police said they believe a fire at a gas station next door began when gunfire hit a pump. At least three police vehicles were damaged in the shooting — one of them was struck 21 times — and a police helicopter was shot at with a high-powered weapon and was hit five times, authorities said.

About an hour after the shootings began, a SWAT officer killed the gunman, said police spokesman John Cannon.

“If he hadn’t taken that action that quickly, this probably would have been a lot worse than it was,” Cannon said.

The county medical examiner had not yet identified the gunman, Cannon said.

Houston Police Union President Ray Hunt said an officer who was hit several times in the chest was wearing both a metal breastplate and a bulletproof vest. The second officer was shot in the hand.

The streets remained blocked off late Sunday afternoon, with many police cars and firetrucks on the scene. A police SUV was seen with a shattered windshield and the back window broken out, and police said two patrol cars were riddled with bullets.

Stephen Dittoe, 55, lives in the house right behind the shooting scene, separated by a fence and tall shrubbery at the end of a cul-de-sac.

“I heard the first shot, and I thought it was a transformer” exploding, he said.

His wife, Ha, 41, said it went on too long for that. She described a series of staccato sounds.

She took their two children, ages 6 and 7, into the bathroom, told them to eat breakfast in there, and called 911.

Police later came to check on them and asked them to go to the backyard.