Armed man who tried to flee shot by deputies

A 38-year-old man was shot by Bexar County sheriff’s deputies around 11 a.m. Saturday after they found him outside his West Side home with a gun in each hand and he pointed the firearms at officers, Sheriff Javier Salazar said.

The man was shot in his right arm and leg by deputies, Salazar said at a news conference at the scene. The man, whose name was not released, was taken to a local hospital with non-lifethreatening injuries.

Deputies were sent to the house on Muddy Peak Drive after a call came in late Saturday morning of a man firing guns from his window.

“It does appear there was a mental health episode going on that led to the initial shots fired,” Salazar said, with a relative in the home talking to deputies about the days leading up to the incident.

The man had allegedly been firing shots out of his home for the past few days, Salazar said, but was unsure if that was reported to law enforcement.

Once the deputies arrived, Salazar said, the man was seen outside his home, holding a gun in each hand, and then leveled them at the deputies.

The man then got in his car with the guns, the sheriff said.

“Somebody like that becoming mobile and making their way through a neighborhood is not a good thing at all,” Salazar said.

Two deputies fired several shots at the man — one using an AR-15 rifle, and another a pistol. The man then got out of the car and tried to leave the scene on foot while still armed, Salazar said.

Salazar was unsure whether the man shot at the deputies during the incident.

The man ran for about 70 yards before deputies got close enough to use Tasers on him, the sheriff said. The man continued to resist, Salazar said, but deputies got him in handcuffs and applied tourniquets to his injured arm and leg.

“From what I’ve seen, it was a pretty chaotic scene, but it looks like the deputies did a good job of getting the suspect under control with what minimal force that they could employ at that point,” Salazar said.

The names of the deputies were not immediately available, but both are law enforcement veterans.

Salazar said one deputy has been with the Sheriff ’s Office for 19 years, starting at the jail. The other deputy has been with the agency for 11 years, four of those years on patrol, Salazar said.

Deputies recovered two handguns at the scene, one in the car and the other where the man was handcuffed.