PASADENA, Texas – An off-duty Harris County Precinct 5 deputy constable was injured during a shooting Sunday afternoon at a store in Pasadena, and the suspect is on the run.
Investigators with the Pasadena Police Department say the deputy was hit in the right lower leg with what appears to have been one of his own bullets.
Pasadena police spokesman Vance Mitchell tells Channel 2 News that the undercover deputy saw a shoplifter running out of Marshall’s at the Fairway Plaza Shopping Center on Fairmont Parkway carrying clothing still on the hangers.
He says the lawmen chased the suspect but the suspect entered a black Honda and started driving at the deputy constable, apparently trying to run him over.
At that point, the deputy told investigators he began firing at the oncoming vehicle and apparently one of those bullets ricocheted off the car and struck the deputy in the leg.
The shooting was reported around 4:30 p.m. at a shopping center near Beltway 8 and Fairmont Parkway.
Beth, an eyewitness to the chase, who asked us not to reveal her full name, says the shoplifter ran right into her on his way out of the Marshall’s store.
She says he shoved her aside and just kept running.
That’s when she says she saw the off duty deputy run after the suspect.
“There was a black man that had a handful… an armful of clothes, still on the hangers running out of the doors, he almost knocked me over. The store alarms were going off. And by the time I got outside, there was already an undercover officer chasing after him. He was running so fast.” she said.
The suspect eventually got away, driving off in what has been described as an older model, black, Honda.
The deputy constable, was rushed to Memorial Hermann Southeast Hospital and is recovering from a non-life-threatening bullet wound to the leg.
Anyone with information on the incident is asked to call the Pasadena Police Department.
Police have made no arrests. They released a surveillance photo of the suspect Tuesday.