Houston police shot and stopped a gunman who was indiscriminately firing on passing vehicles Friday morning, wounding a mother and daughter and a third person — an armed response that saved lives and the kind of story the establishment press buries because it doesn't fit the narrative.
When a man is standing in a median putting rounds into cars on a public road, there is no substitute for armed responders willing to engage. The defund-the-police crowd has no answer for this moment.
The shooting unfolded around 11 a.m. on Wayside Drive, according to the Houston Police Department. Officers responding to reports of gunfire found a man with a gun. They commanded him to drop the weapon. He didn't. Three Houston officers and a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper opened fire, striking the suspect multiple times. He was taken to a hospital. No officers were injured.
A witness who identified himself only as David told KRIV-TV the gunman "didn't care who was coming which way. He didn't care who he was shooting at. He didn't care if there were kids in the car." David and his coworkers tried to stop cars from driving toward the shooter.
Among the targeted vehicles was a car carrying a mother and her daughter — both struck by gunfire. A third person in a second vehicle was also shot. An occupant of a third vehicle escaped unharmed. The suspect has not been publicly identified and no motive has been disclosed. Houston PD and Texas Rangers are investigating.
Contrast this with Flint, Michigan, where there was no armed response to stop the threat. MLive reported that the adult daughter of Flint Mayor Sheldon Neeley was struck by a stray bullet Monday evening while inside her own home near Begole Street and Milbourne Avenue. Flint Police Chief Terence Green confirmed occupants of a blue Jeep with tinted windows shot at a nearby residence, gunfire was exchanged from inside the home, and a stray bullet struck the mayor's daughter. She sustained a minor, non-life-threatening injury. The suspects remain unidentified.
"It's happening far too frequently," Green said of innocent bystanders winding up as shooting victims. He's right about that — but he has no answer for how to stop it when the shooters face no immediate armed resistance.
In Houston, police confronted an active gunman and stopped him before he could kill anyone. In Flint, the shooters drove off into the night and the chief is asking the public for help identifying them. Two cities, two outcomes — and only one involved armed responders doing what the establishment insists they shouldn't exist to do.
The suspect in the Houston shooting survived and is hospitalized. The question now is whether prosecutors will treat this as what it is — an attempted mass killing — or find a way to reduce charges and recycle the case back onto the streets.
