HOUSTON -- A man walking with a friend in the Heights was shot and killed Tuesday morning, police told KPRC Local 2.

Officers with the Houston Police Department said the men were walking at about 4:30 a.m. on Thompson Street near Schuler Street, south of the Katy Freeway and east of Memorial Park, when Oscar Wade Williams, 61, was fatally shot.

Eddie Ronald Gage, William's friend, told investigators that someone inside a blue Ford F-150 pickup drove by and flashed several gang signs.

"The driver jumped out of the vehicle, started flashing gang signs at the victim," HPD Detective I.F. Flores Jr. said.

Gage said he and Williams ignored the man and began walking in the opposite direction when the killer opened fire, wounding Williams in the head.

Emergency workers pronounced Williams dead at the scene.

Investigators heard that minutes before the shooting, the gunman had dropped off another man at a nearby house. Detectives followed that lead but have not said what they discovered there.

Police have not determined why Williams and Gage were walking in the street at 4:30 a.m.

So far, officers said, the incident appears to be a random shooting.

Anyone with information should call the Houston Police Department's Homicide Division at (713) 308-3600 or Crime Stoppers at (713) 222-TIPS.