Police follow new leads in murder of student at Subway
HOUSTON (KTRK) -- Houston Police and Crime Stoppers of Houston released new information Saturday morning in the shooting death of Javier Flores, and his parents pleaded with the public for information on his killers.
Flores was shot and killed Wednesday while protecting his mother during a robbery at the southeast Houston Subway where they both worked.
New photos of the suspects and an example of the car they were driving were released in hopes of finding the pair responsible. The vehicle is described as a tan or gold late model Mazda Protege.
Flores' grieving parents spoke at a press conference with HPD.
"Javier died a hero because he saves his mama. And that's the way we're going to remember him, a hero," his father Carlos Vasquez said.
"They didn't have to shoot my son," his mother, Hilda Vasquez said.
She said while they worked at the restaurant together she feared an armed robbery.
"Every time I was there with my son, I stayed until the store closed with him. Because I didn't want him to be by himself because I was always scared," she said.
The Crime Stoppers reward in this investigation has been raised to $40,000.
Meanwhile, the memorial outside the shuttered Subway where Javier Flores was shot and killed is still growing. Several times an hour, someone stops by, dropping off a note, saying a small prayer.
"It just hurts my heart to know that he's gone, because he was a good kid, quiet and real good and would do anything you asked him to do," said Rose Fisher, whose grandchildren grew up with Flores.
Those happy memories now seem so remote, as investigators continue to work to find the robbers who shot and killed the teenager. The focus so far has been surveillance video of a second Subway robbery. The video showed two suspects wearing distinctive sweatshirts. One of the sweatshirts said, "We're a Big Deal" with the number 16 standing in for the letters IG.
Today, Eyewitness News located what appears to be the same hooded sweatshirt. The distinctive logo was part of a 2016 senior class shirt design available for sale through a national distributor. Shirts and other graduation products with that specific logo were made available for purchase to a number of local schools during 2016.
However, friends of Flores who saw the logo today told Eyewitness News they do not recall seeing any students at Chavez High School wearing that pattern. Flores was a student at Chavez.
"I want justice for my son," said Flores' father Javier Vasquez.
He and other family members have been making funeral arrangements all day. They will attend a Crimestoppers news conference on Saturday at 11 a.m. to talk about this murder investigation. Afterward, they will hold a funeral for Flores.
"I hope they find the killers, they're not the bad guy, they're killers. That's what they are, they're killers."
