BAYTOWN, Texas — Three people are dead, including the gunman who police say killed them in two separate shootings in Baytown Wednesday night.
According to Chief John Stringer of the Baytown Police Department, they got a call about a shooting near the intersection of Tri City Beach Road and Evergreen Road at around 6:30 p.m. That’s where they found a man and a woman who had been shot. The man was pronounced dead at the scene.
While they were investigating that shooting, they got a call about another shooting at the trailer park down the road from where they were. One of the victims of that shooting was flown to a hospital and was pronounced dead there.
When officers arrived at the trailer park, witnesses told them the shooter, identified as 33-year-old Ron Welch, of Baytown, was heading back to the original shooting scene.
Stringer said officers confronted Welch at that first shooting scene and were forced to shoot him, but didn’t provide specifics. Welch didn’t survive.
“Any time that an officer discharges their weapon, it has to be in defense of their own life or the life of another person,” Stringer said, answering a reporter’s question. “There was a physical threat, yes.”
Stringer said the other shooting victims are stable and expected to survive. As for the officers, they’re on paid administrative leave, which Stringer said is standard in these cases.
Police haven’t released the names of anyone else involved or a motive. Stringer did say that Welch and the victims lived in the same community.
The Baytown Police Department and Harris County District Attorney’s Office are investigating.
Check back for updates.