HOUSTON – Police are searching for a person or persons who may be connected to three drive-by BB gun attacks in southwest Houston.
All three incidents happened on May 18. Investigators have security video of the shooters' car in one of the attacks.
One of the victims was Eddie Agular, a mechanic who specializes in building custom jeeps at a shop in the 9100 block of Daffodil Street.
Agular was test-driving a vehicle he’d been working on. As he circled the block near the shop, a dark-colored Nissan SUV began trailing him. Just as he pulled into the shop’s driveway, he was ambushed, shot three times in the back with a BB gun.
"I come over here. I was driving the car. I feel something on my back. Somebody shot me,” Agular said.
He was hit three times with BB gun pellets, fired by whoever was behind the wheel of the SUV. While the shooting may have been meant as a prank, neither Agular nor his boss is laughing.
“I take it very seriously,” said Navid Poostforoush, owner of American Custom Jeep. “Just because it was a BB gun. What if it was a real gun. Just, like, randomly, somebody comes shooting. I take it very seriously.”
On the same day, there were two similar attacks just a couple of miles from Agular’s shop. About two hours after the initial incident, a 63-year-old man who was sitting on his balcony outside his apartment in the 5900 block of Bonhomme Road heard what sounded like a BB gun going off and then realized he’d been shot in the arm.
Later that night, a woman walking in the 6100 block of Westheimer Road was also shot in the arm.
So far, the only evidence police have to go on in tracking down the shooter in the gray SUV seen in the security video. It’s a gray or black 2005 to 2012 Nissan Pathfinder. Agular said the driver appeared to be a young man, but no one got a good look at his face, and in the video, the license plates are unreadable.
Police are asking anyone who knows that vehicle to call Crime Stoppers at 713-222-8477. There’s a reward of up to $5,000 for information that can lead police to the truck and its driver.
The shooter may not know it but, even though it was a BB gun, the charge is still aggravated assault, which is a felony that could be punishable by prison time.