SAN ANTONIO – A partially-clothed man running from Bexar County Sheriff’s deputies Sunday night made it less than a block before using a handgun to shoot and kill himself, eyewitnesses told KSAT 12 Monday.
Even though Bexar County Sheriff’s investigators blocked off several blocks of FM 78, between Walzem Road and Woodlake Parkway, medical equipment left behind by first responders and cell phone camera footage of the aftermath shows the suspect ran only a few hundred feet before turning the gun on himself.
Man sought by Bexar County deputies fatally shoots himself
Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said Sunday the man was pulled over around 7 p.m. after deputies ran the license plate of the car he was driving and saw that it came back as stolen.
Public records on Monday revealed the 2003 Mitsubishi Lancer is registered to a person living on the city’s far West Side.
Investigators have not said how they believe the car ended up in far northeast Bexar County, but did confirm the traffic stop was the result of increased patrols in the area following a recent surge in crime.
The suspect, described as a man in his late 30′s or early 40′s wearing only boxer shorts and boots, had not been identified as of late Monday afternoon.
Witnesses told KSAT 12 the man may have used stacked concrete barriers near the stopped vehicle to jump a fence in an effort to get away from deputies.
At some point, the man left a back yard and got back onto property along FM 78 behind the neighborhood.
“I honestly don’t believe he ran through our backyard. I believe he was on the back side,” said neighbor Jason Dyer, referring to a strip of grass and a sidewalk running between the backyards of homes and FM 78.
A BCSO spokesman said Monday the agency was still trying to determine if deputies were wearing body-worn cameras and may have captured the incident on video.
Salazar said Sunday night, during a torrential downpour, that heavy storms in the area were making it more difficult to process the scene.