5 officers on leave after suspect shot dead
Five officers from three different law enforcement agencies were placed on administrative duty Monday night after they shot their guns at a man who ran from an arrest attempt moments after he had robbed a liquor store at gunpoint, Houston Police Chief Troy Finner said.
The shooting happened just after 8 p.m. Monday near the Shoppes at Oak North North strip mall in the 26800 block of Interstate 45 in Oak Ridge North, a small Montgomery County city about 30 miles north of downtown Houston.
The man, who was in his 30s, died after being taken to a hospital. His name hadn’t been released as of Tuesday morning.
Finner was joined by members of the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, the Texas Department of Public Safety, the Oak Ridge North Police Department and the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office during a Monday night press conference about the shooting.
The agencies were working together to track the man, who was believed to be a suspect in multiple armed robberies in Harris, Fort Bend and Montgomery Counties, Finner said.
The man was seen casing businesses before entering the liquor store and robbing it, Finner said. The officers attempted to stop the man after he left the store, but he ran, leading the officers into a nearby bayou, Finner said.
The man was carrying a gun while he ran and didn’t listen to the officers’ commands to drop the weapons, Finner said. The officers opened fire because they feared for their own lives, the chief said.
The officers who fired their weapons included a Houston Police Department sergeant and two officers, a Harris County Sheriff ’s Office deputy and a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper. None of the officers were wounded.
Multiple agencies are investigating the robbery and whether the use of force by the officers was justified.
It’s unclear if the man fired his weapon at the officers, but Montgomery County District Attorney Brett Ligon said he brandished a gun. The shooting was caught on video cameras, Ligon said.
The details of the shooting investigation will eventually be presented to a grand jury, which will decide if any charges should be brought against the officers, Ligon said.
“Don’t make this into something it’s not. I will still present it here to a grand jury in Montgomery County, but it’s very clear, the suspect was given several opportunities to stop,” Ligon said. The robbery and the shooting were both recorded, Ligon said, indicating the shooting appeared justified.
“We’re not going to act like something special happened here,” he said.
The shooting is the fourth time since February that Houston Police Department officers have been involved in the shooting deaths of criminal suspects. In all four shootings, including the Feb. 11 shooting at Lakewood Church, police said the people killed had committed violent crimes, were armed and refused orders to drop their weapons before they were shot and killed.