'Grateful to be alive': Man being robbed fires shots at suspects, hits bystander's car window

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- A man says he is grateful to be alive after his car was hit by gunfire while he was stopped at a traffic light in the Greater Uptown area on Saturday. It's a story you'll see Only on 13.

Charles Brooks said he had just left the grocery store at about 1:20 p.m. and was headed to prepare a Mother's Day lunch when the shooting happened. He was stopped at the intersection of Voss and San Felipe.

"I heard three shots," Brooks said. "Just, 'Pop! Pop! Pop!' And my window exploded."

Brooks said he ducked down in his car and did not know what was happening. He got out of his car, and a woman standing nearby told him that a man was shooting from a nearby bank parking lot.

"He was walking towards us and her and I started to run, because we don't know what he had done," Brooks said.

Houston police arrived on the scene and said the shooter told them he was sitting in the bank parking lot when someone opened the passenger door of his car and stole the money orders he had just gotten.

He said he shot at the robbers as they got away. Instead of hitting them, he hit Brooks' car.

Both the shooter and Brooks remained on the scene.

"I had short sleeves on, so there was glass on my arms," Brooks recalled. "Glass in my hair, and I finally went over to talk to him, and he said, 'I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.' I said, 'OK.'"

When asked by police if he wanted to press charges, Brooks said no after learning the shooter had just been robbed.

"I said to him, 'What you did was reckless because they were leaving,'" Brooks explained. "So you're going to get them, which means you had time to think about it. It wasn't like they were right up on you at the time. They had a gun on you at the time when you were in immediate danger. That's not the case."

The day after the shooting, Brooks said he found a bullet fragment in his front shirt pocket.

He is familiar with the 2022 shooting death of 9-year-old Arlene Alvarez, which happened under similar circumstances.

"I'm grateful to be alive," Brooks said. "I'm reminded of God's presence in my life and that he keeps me around for a reason."

The Houston Police Department said the Harris County District Attorney's Office declined an aggravated assault with a deadly weapon charge but instead referred a charge of deadly conduct and told officers to continue investigating.

In Alvarez's case, the accused shooter is charged with murder because investigators said there was intent to hit the car she was riding in.

Under the Texas Penal Code, someone is charged with deadly conduct when they knowingly discharge a firearm in the direction of one or more individuals. The charge does not mention intent.

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