Houston police, after saying man shot by officers opened fire first, later say it’s undetermined – Houston Public Media

A Houston Police Department spokesperson said Friday it continues to investigate whether a 19-year-old man shot by police this week first opened fire on officers he encountered — after a deputy department head initially claimed that was the case.

Yasar Bashir, deputy head of the HPD, in the immediately after the shooting Wednesday afternoon at an apartment complex in the Westchase area, said the man raised a semi-automatic firearm and “discharged his weapon at the officers, and we have evidence to support that.” But in a news release Thursday, the department said officers observed the 19-year-old man pointing a gun in their direction and that “the investigation continues to determine whether the man fired a shot during of the incident.”

The man was shot in the leg by police and taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, according to HPD, which said he was related to the woman who lives in the complex. apartments and called him and the police to report a burglary. by three other people who had fled the scene when the police arrived.

“What we always say in our briefings at these locations is that this is preliminary information, so things may change as the investigation continues,” the spokeswoman said Friday. of HPD, Jodi Silva. “We are not saying one way or the other (whether the injured man shot at police). However, the investigation is ongoing.”

Patrol officers Sabeh Salameh and Joel Simon fired several shots at the 19-year-old while he was in an open hallway and also struck a nearby apartment, according to Bashir, who said Wednesday that no one else was injured. The officers were placed on administrative leave pending the results of an investigation into the incident, which involves HPD’s Internal Affairs Division and Special Investigations Unit as well as the Harris County District Attorney’s Office.

No criminal charges had been filed against anyone involved in the incident as of Friday, according to Silva, who did not release the name of the 19-year-old man who was shot or any other descriptive information about him. She declined to provide the name and contact information of the woman who called police to report a burglary at her apartment, saying those details could be obtained through an open records request, which was not immediately fulfilled Friday by the city of Houston.

Houston Public Media also requested the body-worn camera footage of the officers involved. Silva said it would be released within 30 days of the incident, per department policy.

The woman who lives at the Flats on Tanglewilde Apartments at 2630 Tanglewilde St. called HPD around 3:30 p.m. Wednesday to report that her security camera showed three masked people kicking in her door to force entry while she He wasn’t at her house, according to Béchir. HPD described the masked people as “three black males” in its Thursday press release, with Silva adding Friday that they otherwise remained unidentified and at large.

“When officers arrived, they saw a man matching the description of one of the burglary suspects in the area of ​​the apartment,” HPD said in its Thursday news release. “When officers told the man to stop, they noticed he had a gun pointed in their direction and fired their firearms, striking him once in the leg. Officers later identified the man as being a family member of the apartment resident.”

Bashir said Wednesday that at the time Salameh and Simon responded to the burglary call, HPD was unaware that the woman who called police had also contacted relatives. The fact that the officers expected to encounter burglars, and not someone else who was there to help the victim, could have contributed to the shooting, Bashir suggested.

“My advice would be (to tell police), ‘Hey, I called my family members too,'” Bashir said. “Let us know, so we have this information.”