Hear from the first journalist on the scene of West U shooting rampage
HOUSTON (KTRK) -- Eyewitness News Photojournalist Jaime Zamora was the first journalist at the shooting scene on Weslayan, and was talking to anchors on live television as shots rang out.
Just after 6:30am, photojournalist Jaime Zamora was on the air, saying, "I've heard at least a dozen gunshots since I've been here in the last six or seven minutes," Zamora said. "And the gunshots seem to be (shot fired) continuing. There's another one right there."
Zamora took cover behind a concrete pillar near the Walgreens in the Weslayan shopping center. He kept shooting video and providing live updates on abc13 as more police officers and firefighters arrived.
SEE MORE: HPD takes down Weslayan shooting suspect
"I basically just left the camera out so that I could see the scene but basically protect myself behind that wall," Zamora said. "And the shots were coming one after the other, four, five, six at a time."
In the next 30 minutes, Eyewitness News learned that nine people were injured - six were shot and taken to the hospital, one was in critical condition and another seriously injured.
At 7:02am, police shot the suspect.
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Assignment editors on the abc13 news desk were listening to police scanners at the time. An officer said, "Can we get our canine to come up to the suspect, he's down. Safe your weapons, safe your weapons, suspect down, suspect down. Ma'am we have multiple shooting victims 4000 Bissonnet, 3900 Bissonnet, in the area of the Randall's shopping center. We need to start looking for victims over there. Get HFD to respond to that location."
Police searched the gunman's car and found several weapons inside.
Zamora stayed on the air, giving updates during continuous live coverage. He said his adrenaline did not kick in until much later.
"In situations like this, you depend on your experience and your instincts," Zamora said, "You know, our jobs are dangerous. You're gonna have dangerous situations that come up, I mean, we run into hurricanes. But you do the best you can to not put yourself in situations where you could get hurt."
