1 fatally shot during hostage rescue
Officials: FBI agent killed suspect at hotel where at least 2 were held after abduction
An FBI agent shot and killed a person Thursday morning during a hostage rescue in a north Houston hotel, officials said.
FBI agents at around 4:30 a.m. Thursday entered a hotel on Sam Houston Parkway in an attempt to rescue two hostages, FBI Houston Office Special Agent in Charge Jim Smith said at a news conference. One person, who Smith said was a suspect in the kidnapping, was shot and killed. Another person was arrested. The two hostages were rescued and were unharmed. No agents were injured. He didn’t reveal the names of any of the people involved.
Hours after people in north Houston first noticed officers from multiple agencies gathering in north Houston, officials with the FBI said they were helping Waller County Sheriff’s Office with a multi-day hostage rescue operation when the shooting happened.
The FBI will conduct a “thorough, factual and objective” internal investigation into the shooting, Smith said.
The agents who committed the shooting were part of the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team from Quantico, Va., Smith said.
The rescue began three days earlier when three migrants were kidnapped from a vehicle in Waller County, according to an Associated Press report. The three migrants had been traveling in a vehicle on Interstate 10 on March 18 when they were stopped by an unknown number of people and forced into another vehicle, Sean Whittmore, a prosecutor with the Waller County District Attorney’s Office, told the Associated Press. The driver of the migrants’ vehicle called 911 and told officers about the kidnapping. Local authorities later contacted the FBI.
Smith refused to answer additional questions about the shooting, citing the ongoing investigation, so the status of a potential third hostage is not clear.
About 12 law enforcement vehicles, an evidence truck and agents wearing FBI jackets congregated outside a motel. Some people staying at the motel waited outside, watching for what might happen. The motel was about half a mile from the ad
dress along Esplanade Boulevard where officials first responded. Investigators had cordoned off the site with crime scene tape, stopping anyone from walking inside.
By late Thursday afternoon, dozens of FBI agents and police officers mulled around the extended stay hotel. Agents, some in suits and some in FBI T-shirts and khaki pants, put on blue Tyvex shoe covers and went in and out of the second-story room where the shooting happened.
“There is nothing more important to us than the safety of our guests, our employees and the communities in which we operate, and we are doing everything we can to assist law enforcement with their investigation,” according to a spokesperson for Studio 6, the motel where investigators were stationed. “Our thoughts are with the victims’ families.”
A person answering the phone at the Waller County Sheriff’s Office said they hadbeen asked to refer all questions to the FBI and declined to provide any information about the investigation.
Harris County Sheriff’s Office deputies provided watch on the outside perimeter of the scene, but the operation was handled by the FBI, said senior deputy Thomas Gilliland, spokesperson for the office. Officials with the Houston Police Department said they were at the scene early Thursday shadowing the FBI.
Ciara Anthony, an investigator with the Trauma and Casualty Team Houston, told a Houston Chronicle reporter that he responded to the scene around 6:30 a.m. after his boss received a message about a standoff involving the FBI and a SWAT team at the motel. The company describes itself as a biohazard and homicide clean up organization, according to its website.
FBI agents planned to gather at the hotel for several more hours, Smith said at the 4 p.m. news conference. He added “there is no threat to public safety as a result of this incident.”