Driver's mom killed when car plows into crowd of people in Katy area
HARRIS COUNTY, Texas (KTRK) -- The driver accused of intentionally driving into a crowd of people outside of a west Harris County restaurant has been identified as the son of a 35-year-old woman who died in the incident.
According to Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez, 20-year-old Homer Lopez was behind the wheel of the vehicle that ran over five people at about 1 a.m. Thursday in the 1200 block of Mason Road, near the Katy Freeway.
The driver's mother, Crystal Gomez, was identified as the lone fatality in the crash, Gonzalez said.
Beside Gomez, two people were rushed to the hospital, one of them admitted into surgery in critical condition. Two others were treated at the scene.
Lopez is being charged with murder and two counts of failure to stop and render aid.
The incident started as a fight inside Pinchy's Tex Mex Restaurant among seven or eight people that spilled into the parking lot, according to deputies.
Citing early findings, investigators said it appeared the suspect drove into a crowd of people to break up a fight between two women.
ABC13 was at the scene when deputies arrested Lopez in the fatal attack involving a blue Chevy Malibu. Investigators say he left the scene but later returned, and that's when he was arrested.
Deputies are trying to figure how the driver is connected to the other victims involved.
"Out of nowhere, you just hear a car crash, and we all looked that direction, and we didn't even see the girl. We saw the guy first," Jeff, a witness at the scene, recalled. "We saw him holding his leg. He was on the hood of another car next to him."
"It was senseless. Like, why do that? It's senseless. It's sad and it's senseless. Especially nowadays," Jimmy Hernandez said. "That's what's sad. I have no idea what it was over. It was one of those things where, 'Hey, let's just go home.' Right? One of those things where something happened. 'Let's break it out and just go home.'"
Hernandez says his girlfriend's sister-in-law is one of the individuals in the hospital in the ICU.
