HOUSTON - An off-duty HPD officer fired nearly a dozen shots at a man who stole his son's bicycle. The man does not appear to have been hit and the officer says his only motivation was to protect his wife and family.
Still, it could have been a dangerous move in any other neighborhood, but in his brand-new subdivision, the houses closest by are still empty, so was a nearby school, when this happened at 10:00 Tuesday night.
Alex Lopez heard the shots ring out, just as he was moving into his new home, next door to the off-duty officer.
"The guy was trying to steal from the guy. He went inside his property. So he felt that he was threatened," said Lopez.
The man took off with a child's bicycle from the officer's front porch. But the officer says he didn't even know that until later. He just knew that his wife had run out after the suspect.
"She confronted the individual, he fled from the scene," said Manvel Police Chief Keith Traylor. "The off-duty officer came to check on his wife."
That's when the off-duty officer saw the man running down the street, and he believed he was holding a gun. He says when the man turned toward him, he fired at him, about 11 times.
Manvel police haven't found any evidence that the suspect was hit and surveillance video from a nearby school shows he kept right on running.
Police hope the video, and others like it, will bring leads to find the suspect.
"What we need to do is, first and foremost, try to find out for his safety to make sure he is OK," said Chief Traylor.
While neighbors are feeling grateful their quiet cul-de-sac didn't have any more innocent bystanders near the line of fire.
"Then I would have thought differently hey, you shouldn't do that," said Lopez.
The off-duty officer involved has been with HPD for 6 years and that department is doing its own investigation, separate from the Manvel PD probe.
The officer told KHOU11 News off camera that a couple neighbors had been burglarized the past few nights, and that he knew a gun had been stolen in one of those crimes. He believes the suspect he saw was the same man and said he was certain that he did have a gun in his hand when he fired at him.
