HARRIS COUNTY, Texas – Whether you’re firing a gun at a person or firing straight up into the air, experts say that bullet is just as deadly because it will fall out of the sky at roughly 300 feet per second, tumbling as it falls, with enough velocity to cut right through your skull.
“We keep telling people don’t do it, it’s so dangerous, it could kill somebody, but they do it anyway,” Precinct Four Constable Mark Herman said.
And yet, New Year’s Eve night, 29-year-old Darwin Amaya-Gabrieles was arrested and put behind bars after the constable’s office said he was caught with a gun in his hand by a deputy. Investigators say he had been firing that weapon into the air right outside an apartment complex along Kuykendahl Road.
It’s very rare to catch anyone doing that, but Constable Herman says he had ordered all of his deputy’s to drive with their windows down for the very purpose of being able to hear celebratory gunfire and New Year’s Eve night, one of his constables heard just that, which led to this arrest.
“My deputy was driving with his windows down and heard gunfire and just at that moment he turned a corner and saw the gunman holding a gun in his hand. Immediately, that deputy says the gunman took off running into a wooded area and our deputy chased after him. We had to deploy a police dog and a helicopter and after about 35 to 40 minutes we were able to catch that suspect and take him into custody,” Herman said.
Now, Amaya-Gabrieles is sitting in jail charged with one count of felony evading arrest and one count of unlawful carrying of a firearm.
Constable Herman says more charges are likely to follow as the investigation continues.