It happened around 4:20pm in the 4900 block of Dumfries near South Post Oak Boulevard.
Houston police and investigators with the Harris County District Attorney's Office cleared the scene around 9pm. They had spent five hours there, mostly between the two houses where an HPD officer said he feared for his safety and killed a man who lunged at him with a pair of scissors.
Houston police took over Dumfries, an upper-middle class street with little crime until an alleged purse snatcher needed somewhere to hide.
"All I heard was the gunshots," high school junior Stacy Robinson said.
Robinson was inside watching TV Thursday afternoon about the same time an off-duty police officer called in a purse theft. Police say a female was unloading her vehicle at a residence on Willowgrove Dr. and left the tailgate open, when she then saw an unknown male suspect grab a bag from the vehicle and flee the scene on a bicycle.
An off-duty HPD officer, working an approved extra job in the neighborhood, was flagged down by witnesses and told of the incident. The officer then pursued the suspect who dropped his bicycle at the intersection of S. Post Oak and West Bellfort and fled on foot.
A short time later on Dumfries, a witness told a patrol officer they saw a man walk between two houses. The officer confronted him, commanded him to give up. He didn't.
"The suspect gets up quickly throws his jacket in the face of Officer Rivera and at the same time, he comes at him and lunges at him with two pairs of scissors," HPD spokesman Victor Senties said.
The officer fatally shot the man, firing several times.
"I heard sixish," Robinson said.
And it took Robinson some time until she felt comfortable to find out what happened.
"I didn't want to go to the window. I didn't know what was going on and I was too scared," she said.
The suspect has not yet been identified.
The officer who killed the suspect is Officer D. Rivera. He was not injured. Rivera has been with the department since 2010 and will now be on three days' administrative duty, as is protocol after officer-involved shootings.
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