The search is on for a man who witnesses say pointed a gun through an apartment window and shot a mother three times after she tried to prevent him from robbing someone. Now neighbors say they are scared as police try to do everything they can to track the suspect down.
A resident says her 15-year-old son heard the loud commotion coming from the other side of the apartment complex.
"He heard a woman scream," she recalled. "Then boom, boom -- distant gunshots."
Houston police say minutes before the gunshots an armed suspect broke into a downstairs unit and robbed a tenant of her cell phone. Police believe the two sisters who live upstairs overheard it and tried to intervene. That's when authorities say the man, carrying a pistol, ran upstairs to confront the women. Witnesses saw him.
"Somebody was looking through the window and they just shot," a young witness told Eyewitness News.
Police say the bullets hit Maria Nava, 36, multiple times as she sat in the apartment. Neighbors say as the suspect fled on foot, Nava was somehow able to run out of the apartment and to the parking lot where she collapsed after realizing she had been shot.
"They shot her in the neck like three times, and then they ran to Walgreens," the witness said.
"It's scary to think it can happen right where you live," a tenant said.
We're told Nava's teenage son was the one who alerted her to the fact that he had been shot. She is in the hospital, listed as stable. Her sister was not hurt.
Police have only a very vague description of the suspect, who was said to be wearing dark clothes and boots. Witnesses tell police he spoke both English and Spanish. They added that he was last seen around midnight running north on Hillcroft.
Anyone with information is asked to call Houston police.
