HOUSTON \u2013 An investigation is underway after an 18-year-old college student was shot and killed by a Brazoria County Sheriff\u2019s deputy following a chase Monday morning in Lake Jackson, according to officials.<\/p>\n
The incident happened just after midnight near FM 2004 and This Way Street.<\/p>\n
According to the Brazoria County Sheriff\u2019s Office, a deputy attempted to initiate a traffic stop on a vehicle around 12:09 a.m. on Monday, June 1. <\/p>\n
Investigators say the driver, who has been identified as 18-year-old John Gabriel Mendoza Jr., a sophomore at Texas State University, failed to stop and led deputies on a pursuit.<\/p>\n
Authorities said the chase ended when Mendoza Jr. pulled into an attached garage of a home in the 100 block of Indian Warrior Trail in Lake Jackson.<\/p>\n
Officials have not released many details about what happened next, but investigators say the deputy encountered Mendoza and discharged his firearm, hitting him.<\/p>\n
Mendoza was transported to a hospital, where he was later pronounced dead.<\/p>\n
Detectives remained at the scene for hours on Monday morning, collecting evidence as the investigation continued.<\/p>\n
The Brazoria County Sheriff\u2019s Office has requested assistance from the Texas Rangers, who will lead the investigation alongside the Brazoria County District Attorney\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n
In accordance with department policy, the deputy involved has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation.<\/p>\n
KPRC 2 spoke with Mendonza\u2019s family, who said he had been playing football since he was 5 years old. The family says they are heartbroken. <\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON \u2013 An investigation is underway after an 18-year-old college student was shot and killed by a Brazoria…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":317775,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[13358,12036,5225,33111,27,29,28],"class_list":["post-317774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-brazoria-county","tag-chase","tag-officer-involved-shooting","tag-ois","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/317775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}