SAN ANTONIO – Two juveniles and a 20-year-old man were arrested after a meeting to sell a stolen car to the car’s owner Thursday morning erupted in gunfire and ended with an evacuation of a Walmart on the city’s North Side.
According to Chris Ramos, a spokesman with the San Antonio Police Department, a woman reported her car stolen Monday night after leaving the vehicle running.
She saw that the vehicle was being offered for sale online and decided to meet Thursday morning with the people selling her car, Ramos said.
The woman and a 20-year-old man arrived for the meeting around 11:30 a.m. in the 1700 block of Clower with a teenage girl and boy, both 15 years old. At some point, the man demanded the car back, and that’s when he and the boy exchanged gunfire, a preliminary police report said.
The teenagers took off in the car, with the woman and man in pursuit, until the car became disabled as it pulled into the Walmart in the 1600 block of Vance Jackson Road, the report said. The two teens and the man ran into the store where the girl and the man were apprehended without incident. According to witnesses, the boy ran through the store with a gun in his hand and he was located a short time later, the report said. A witness told officers that he saw the boy leave the gun in the rear of the store, where it was located. The man’s gun was also recovered. No shots were fired inside the store. The report didn’t mention the woman who Ramos said was with the man.
According to the report, the teen girl may be be charged with theft of a vehicle and the teen boy with deadly conduct and unlawful carrying of a weapon. The man may possibly be charged with discharging a firearm in the city limits.
The store, which was evacuated as a precaution, will remain closed while police finish the investigation.
Ramos urged residents not to leave their vehicles unattended while still running and not to try to take the law into their own hands.