Wild wrong-way carjacking leads to standoff and school lockdown

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- It had the ingredients for disaster, if not tragedy -- a stolen car, going the wrong way on the North Belt near 59, with the woman who was carjacked taken along for a terrifying ride. In its path were drivers who suddenly saw a car speeding toward them, head-on.

In the end, there were no collisions, no injuries, only a 23-year-old suspect in custody after he tried to find sanctuary in a family friend's east Harris County home.

Steven Brown says his sister-in-law opened the door to the man. "He came into my room," he says, "and told me, Uncle Steven, I'm sorry."

Brown says the suspect was "mad because he hadn't been able to see his baby." He wasn't able to explain why that anger may have led him to a carjacking.

Deputies, Brown says, knocked down part of his fence while descending on the small home in the King's Village neighborhood mid-morning Tuesday. Brown had already left the house when he saw law enforcement arrive. A brief phone negotiation ended in the suspect's surrender.

Neighbors who were curious about the convoy of deputies' cars on the street were advised to stay in their homes. The brief standoff also forced a lockdown at two schools in the area. Datrian Matthews says he was going to his 4-year-old son's school to pick him up, but traffic was shut down on the street. His son was finally delivered home safe and sound on another school bus.

"My wife wants to move immediately," Matthews says. "But I told her it can happen anywhere -- like the Woodlands. Right now, the sun is out, the birds are making music. The place is quiet again. I plan to stay."