HOUSTON – Mateo Sanchez knows he is lucky to be alive. A stray bullet pierced the wall of his home, entered his bedroom, went through his temple and exited his forehead, he said.
“That’s what the doctor said; it’s a miracle,” the 22-year-old father said.
The incident happened Sep. 23, 2019 at about 1 a.m. Sanchez said he was immobilized but called for his wife who found him in a pool of blood.
Four months later, Sanchez has only two small physical scars to show from a bullet that missed his brain by millimeters.
But the story does not end there, the gunfire continues in the Greenbriar neighborhood of Greenspoint. The trouble appears to originate from an oddly empty, never developed street behind Sanchez’s home called Little Fox Lane.
“Firearms shooting, prostitution, drugs, people go back there because it’s dark,” Sanchez said.
Sanchez said that weeks ago he filled out the appropriate City of Houston paperwork to get streetlights put in. So far, nothing has happened.
The Houston Police Department increased patrols shortly after the September shooting, but the extra vigilance seems to have tapered off, according to Sanchez.
Sanchez said he has developed PTSD from the event, and the continued gunfire rattles him.
“I’m worried (about) my family, my daughter, my neighbors,” Sanchez said.
On Friday, KPRC 2 called District B Houston City Council Member Jerry Davis to inquire about the addition of street lights in that neighborhood. The call was not immediately returned.