SWAT officers kill NW Houston man after standoff

Authorities say he pointed a gun at officers

By JENNIFER LATSON

HOUSTON CHRONICLE

Sept. 20, 2009, 9:10PM

A police officer shot and killed a man who pointed a handgun with a laser attachment toward police after a two-hour standoff Saturday night.

Police were called around 8:30 p.m. to the northwest Houston home where they were told that 49-year-old Gary Varner had pointed a gun at neighbors who were standing on his front lawn and threatened to kill them.

Police said Varner then retreated inside his house on Turquoise Lane, shooed his wife and adult son out of the house, and barricaded himself inside.

He fired multiple shots inside the house before officers arrived, and several more after they got there, police said.

“We don't know at what,” Houston police spokesman John Cannon said.

Hostage negotiators tried to talk Varner into coming out peacefully. He approached the front door several times, but only to yell threats at the SWAT officers, Cannon said.

Around 10:40 p.m., police say, he walked outside with the handgun and pointed its laser sight toward the officers. Senior police officer Richard Kent shot once, killing Varner.

The shooting is under investigation by the Houston Police Homicide Division, the Police Department's internal affairs office, and the district attorney.

In Varner's modest home on the quiet lane, family members mourned Sunday, both tearful and angry.

One woman who identified herself only as a relative approached a reporter on a neighbor's lawn and threatened “to get ugly” if the reporter did not leave the neighborhood.

The neighbors declined to comment.

jennifer.latson@chron.com