Evicted Man Shot Tenants Fleeing Fires He Set: Police

Houston gunman killed 3 neighbors and wounded 2
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Aug 28, 2022 4:10 PM CDT
Evicted Man Shot Tenants Fleeing Fires He Set: Police
Neighbors stand around a multiroom renting facility in the aftermath of a fatal shooting in Houston on Sunday.   (Brett Coomer/Houston Chronicle via AP)

A man evicted from a Houston apartment building shot five other tenants—killing three of them—Sunday morning after setting fire to the house to lure them out, police said. Officers fatally shot the gunman. The attack happened about 1am Sunday in a mixed industrial-residential neighborhood in southwest Houston, the AP reports. Police and fire crews arrived at the apartment house after reports of the fire, police Chief Troy Finner said. The gunman opened fire, possibly with a shotgun, on the other tenants as they emerged from the house, Finner said. Two of the tenants were dead at the scene, and one died at a hospital.

Fire teams rescued two other wounded men, who were hospitalized with injuries that Finner said were not life-threatening. The man then opened fire as the firefighters battled the fire, forcing them to take cover until police officers spotted the prone gunman and shot him to death, Finner said. No identities have been released. Finner said no firefighters or officers were wounded. "I've seen things I have not seen before in 32 years, and it has happened time and time again," Finner said. "We just ask that the community come together."

A neighbor, Robin Ahrens, said he heard what he initially thought were fireworks as he prepared for work. "I'm just fortunate that I didn't go outside because he probably would have shot me too," Ahrens said. He said the shooter, who had colon cancer, was behind on his rent, jobless, and was recently notified that he was being evicted. "Something must have just hit him in the last couple of days really hard to where he just didn't care," he said.

(More fatal shooting stories.)

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