HOUSTON — A robbery suspect who was shot several times by a Houston police officer Wednesday shortly after robbing a dollar store in the Greenspoint area died, authorities said.
The shooting happened just before 6 p.m. in the 2900 block of Broad Haven Drive, near Veterans Memorial Drive.
The incident started to unravel earlier in the day when investigators with the Houston Police Department and the Harris County Sheriff's Office were looking for suspects who had committed multiple robberies in the area over the past few days.
Larry Satterwhite, the executive assistant chief with HPD, said an officer saw a man matching the description of one of their robbery suspects go inside the Krazy Dollar Store in the 11100 block of Veterans Memorial Drive. After robbing the store, the man ran from the scene, investigators said.
Officers saw the suspect running along Broad Haven. Satterwhite said an officer told the man to stop, but he kept running toward him with a gun. That's when the officer shot the suspect, who fell to the ground and dropped the gun, authorities said.
Officers said they called an ambulance to the scene and took the suspect to an area hospital in critical condition. He was later pronounced dead.
Satterwhite said the Krazy Dollar Store had been robbed three times within the past five days.
"They were robbed on Saturday, they were robbed on Sunday and now today," Satterwhite said. "We really needed to get these individuals in custody. It's unfortunate that it ended up in an officer-involved shooting, but we really needed to get these individuals into custody."
No employees were injured in the robberies, but Satterhwite said they are pretty shaken up.
The officer who shot the suspect is 26 and has spent five years with HPD. He will be placed on administrative leave during the investigation into the shooting, which is HPD's policy.
HCSO will be handling the investigation since it happened in their jurisdiction.