Off-duty HPD officer guns down suspect

02:57 PM CDT on Friday, April 11, 2008

By Adrienne M. Cody / KHOU.com

HOUSTON - An off-duty HPD officer shot and killed a 28-year-old in North Houston early Friday morning.

Around 1 a.m., 24-year HPD veteran Sgt. C.W. Jones was visiting a friend at an apartment complex at 1200 West Tidwell. An HPD spokesman said he heard what sounded like glass breaking, so he looked out the window and saw a car being broken into.

Sgt. Jones went downstairs and saw that a radio was missing from the car.

"Got a little closer, saw that the suspect was actually inside the vehicle," HPD Capt. Bruce Williams said.

That's when Sgt. Jones asked the suspect to get out of the car. Police said the man lunged at Sgt. Jones, who then fired two shots, hitting the suspect once in the chest.

The man died at the scene. Police said he had a large screwdriver with him.

According to the victim's mother, her son went back and forth between her apartment there or with a girlfriend nearby, and she didn't know him to carry a weapon.

"I just don't understand," Barbara Stokes said. "Why did he kill him? If he was breaking into a car or whatever he was supposed to be doing, he could have just arrested him -- he didn't have to shoot him down like that."

HPD Homicide, the Internal Affairs Division and the Harris County Attorney's Office are investigating the incident.