Car crashes into building at end of police chase
BELLAIRE, TX (KTRK) -- A police chase in southwest Houston ended with a deadly crash Tuesday morning.
According to police, it all started when plain-clothed officers went to a Game Stop on Bissonnet and Weslayan to investigate other robberies. When they arrived, they say they noticed a man leaving the store with a bunch of Xboxes, looking suspicious.
An officer in an unmarked car began to follow that man, while other officers went inside the store to talk to employees, who told them they'd just been robbed at gunpoint.
"The officers who were inside the business then radioed to other officers who were not in uniform who began following that possible suspect vehicle just in case," HPD PIO John Cannon said, " And that worked out for us in the end."
That's when officers called for backup and a marked police car tried to stop the suspect. The suspect then reportedly ran a red light, hit another car and then hit the Starbucks at South Rice and Bissonnet. An employee there tells us it sounded like a bomb went off when the car came through.
"The smoke was so bad that, just all the debris everywhere, that it was making people cough," said Victoria Bolles, who was inside the coffee shop at the time of the wreck. "Everybody was trying to get out of the store, you look up and you just see cops and guns."
When officers arrived, they had guns drawn trying to get to the suspect; however, he was killed in the accident.
Fortunately, no employees or customers in the Starbucks were hurt.
"We were shaking so bad," Bolles said."We're a little more calmed down now."
Officers were going through the suspect's car to try to determine if he's connected to any other robberies. They say the weapon he had with him was a BB gun.
Starbucks issued the following statement:
