Vehicle in Highland Village-area shooting linked to Fort Bend domestic assault case, authorities say<\/a><\/p>\nVideo from the scene shows officers surrounding the vehicle and shouting commands at Spates before the situation escalated.<\/p>\n
In one video, Spates appears to open the vehicle door with something in his hand. Gunfire then erupts as eight officers and a police sergeant open fire.<\/p>\n
Brian Baxter, a Force Science Ltd. consultant, Iraq War veteran and retired training leader with the Texas Department of Public Safety, reviewed six videos from the incident for ABC13.<\/p>\n
“It was a busy area and that was definitely a deadly force response,” Baxter said.<\/p>\n
“Complete chaos and pretty terrifying,” Kristen Collins said. “All I could think about was my girls.”<\/p>\n
She said she and others took cover and moved along the ground to avoid the gunfire.<\/p>\n
Baxter said officers were forced to make decisions with limited information.<\/p>\n
“In an event like this with a lack of incoming information, those officers are operating on what they’ve experienced before,” Baxter said.<\/p>\n
He noted that a reported stolen vehicle and a suspect’s failure to comply with commands can be factors officers consider when determining the level of threat.<\/p>\n
Video also shows officers retreating while holding their firearms behind them.<\/p>\n
Baxter said that could have been an attempt to keep their muzzles from pointing at people who were moving around them.<\/p>\n
“He appeared to me to be struggling to find a safe place for his muzzle,” Baxter said.<\/p>\n
Baxter said officers also had to consider where their weapons were pointed as people moved nearby.<\/p>\n
“One of the things I would be concerned about is pointing my muzzle at things I wouldn’t want to destroy,” he said.<\/p>\n
Spates was ultimately taken into custody and treated at a hospital for what was described as a graze wound.<\/p>\n
Baxter said he was relieved no officers were injured during the encounter.<\/p>\n
“The officers were assuming, frankly, a great deal of risk by getting that shield and approaching the vehicle with all of the unknowns,” Baxter said.<\/p>\n
ABC13 reached out to the Houston Police Department to confirm whether Spates had a weapon during the encounter. Police have not confirmed that detail.<\/p>\n
Spates has not been charged in connection with the shooting. He remains jailed on a $35,000 bond on the stolen-vehicle case.<\/p>\n
SEE ORIGINAL REPORT: Suspect hospitalized after being shot by HPD officers in Highland Village area, police say<\/a>
<\/p>\nCopyright \u00a9 2026 KTRK-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — New video shows the moments Houston police officers opened fire during a standoff with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399019,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[140057,56,58,57],"class_list":["post-399018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-140057","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399018","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=399018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399018\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}