Police shoot flashlight-wielding man after standoff outside hospital

09:00 AM CDT on Monday, March 23, 2009

By Kevin Reece / 11 News

WEBSTER, Texas—A flashlight-wielding suspect was shot several times late Sunday night after an hour-long standoff with police outside the Clear Lake Regional Medical Center.

Webster police were called to the scene just before 11 p.m. after they received reports of an injured person in the parking lot.

Police said the man had sustained injuries in multiple hit-and-run accidents in Houston. His father brought him to the emergency room and went inside to get help.

While his dad was inside, police said the man was able to get out of truck and onto the ground between two cars.

“His father had gone in to get help, because he couldn’t walk, apparently. When the hospital staff came out to get him, that’s when he made threats to kill them and pointed whatever it was – turned out to be a flashlight – at them, and they thought it was a weapon,” Webster Police Chief Ray Smiley said.

When officers arrived at the scene, hospital staff told them that the man was outside on the ground, and he had threatened to shoot several people who had tried to render aid.

“I was walking out of the hospital to come to my car and I was walking with paramedics. There was a guy laying on the ground and he threatened to shoot us, so we all ran back inside for our lives and we were on lockdown for an hour,” one witness said.

Police said they immediately began negotiating with the suspect, but the suspect repeatedly threatened to shoot the officers.

After about an hour of negotiations with no progress, police moved in on the man.

“He had something in his hand that officers had to assume was a weapon. When he pointed it directly at them, they had to take protective measures,” Smiley said.

“All we heard was yelling back and forth, cussing the cops out. The cops were asking him to put the gun down, crawl over to us, we can work this out, we can talk this out. He wouldn’t. We heard about six, seven, 10 shots … That’s when we knew it was over,” another witness said.

The suspect was apprehended, stabilized and sent to Ben Taub in stable condition.

Police said it was unclear why the man wouldn’t accept help and allegedly exhibited violent behavior.

“He definitely had some injuries from the accident, but the belligerence and aggressiveness of him and the threats to life of both the hospital staff and of the officers indicate a mental problem of some sort,” Smiley said.

Both Harris County and Webster authorities are investigating the incident.