A man apparently in the act of shooting his mother was fatally shot by a neighbor in North Houston early Tuesday.
Harris County sheriff’s deputies responded to a shooting call in the 300 block of Highland Cross, Sheriff Ed Gonzalez tweeted out just before 3:30 a.m. on July 5. When deputies arrived, they found a woman with several gunshot wounds and a man with a single gunshot wound.
Paramedics rushed the woman to the hospital in critical condition; medical personnel pronounced the man dead at the scene. A preliminary investigation determined that the pair was mother and son, Gonzalez said.
KHOU in Houston reported that the mother was celebrating the Fourth of July when her 22-year-old son arrived and began acting erratically.
At some point, the mother and son entered the apartment, where he began firing a rifle, possibly an AK-47. Some rounds went through the wall into a neighboring apartment, but the neighbors sustained no injuries.
Investigators initially believed the man shot himself, but a neighbor admitted to shooting the suspect to prevent the 22-year-old from killing his mother.
“The son stood over mom, shot her like three or four times, and that’s when the good Samaritan took his shot and was able to strike the suspect,” Gonzalez told reporters.
The 58-year-old mother was released from surgery and is expected to survive, KHOU continued. All information is preliminary, according to Gonzalez, and crime scene investigators are still working out the details.