Man shot, killed by deputies

Sheriff says man struggled during arrest and pulled knife

Josh Fairchild locked eyes with a man wearing a white T-shirt soaked in blood.

The 21-year-old McDonald’s employee was taking a smoke break Wednesday at a Cypress gas station when he noticed the man standing about 30 yards away, spitting blood with a cut wound on his neck. The man turned and stared at him so long, Fairchild considered offering him a cigarette.

“Let me be nice to him and maybe he’ll just look away from me,” Fairchild recalled thinking. “And that’s when I saw the cops pull up.”

Moments later, the man was shot and killed by Harris County Sheriff ’s Office deputies after displaying a knife. The entire incident unfolded around noon at a gas station in 12900 block of Telge Road.

Deputies had responded to reports of a

man armed with a knife acting erratic inside the convenience store, which was attached to the McDonald’s where Fairchild worked.

Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said the man took off running toward Jarvis Road as the two responding deputies pursued him. The deputies used a stun gun on him, he said.

Fairchild filmed the scene with his phone from a distance. He said the man dropped to the ground when he was hit with the stun gun. The deputies, he said, tried subdue the man on the ground. Gonzalez said a third deputy passing the scene saw the struggle and tried to help by restraining the man’s legs. “At that point, the male produced the knife,” Gonzalez said.

The first two deputies drew their firearms on the man because they believed he would get up and use the knife, the sheriff said. They both shot at him. The deputies gave him medical attention before he was taken to a nearby medical facility, where he was pronounced dead.

Fairchild said in addition to the knife, he saw what appeared to be a straight razor fall out of the man’s pocket during the scuffle.

One of the deputies who fired at the suspect was a cadet trainee who had been out on patrol with the sheriff ’s office for seven days, according to the agency. The trainee had served as a deputy at another agency previously, Gonzalez said. The second deputy was a trainer who has been with the office for eight years, according to the sheriff.

“A full and thorough investigation is underway,” Gonzalez said.

The shooting will be investigated by the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, the Harris County Institute of Forensic Science and the sheriff ’s office. Officer body camera footage, as well as video provided by witnesses, will be reviewed, Gonzalez said.

The name of the man and the officers have not yet been released to the public.

Photos by Karen Warren / Staff photographer Harris County sheriff ’s officials investigate the scene Wednesday after a man allegedly wielding a knife was shot by a deputy near a convenience store in the 12900 block of Telge in Cypress.

Detectives talk to someone at the convenience store. A worker at the McDonald’s nearby recorded the shooting.

Karen Warren / Staff photographer An evidence marker is placed next to a knife at the scene where Harris County deputies shot a man they were trying to subdue.