Medina County, Texas – A teenager faces a felony charge of deadly conduct, weeks after he was accused of firing a gun at two 12-year-old boys as they walked home from a bus stop in LaCoste.
The arrest of Hosbaldo Rodriguez, 18, comes days after families in LaCoste went public with criticism of how its police department handled the shooting investigation.
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Rodriguez was booked into the Medina County Jail Friday and charged with deadly conduct - discharge of a firearm, a third-degree felony.
Sheriff’s officials did not release the suspect’s bond information.
The March 8 incident happened outside a home near Val Verde Street and Ney Avenue, just down the street from the LaCoste Police Department in Medina County.
The boys had just gotten off the school bus sometime after 4 p.m. when they were approached by a suspect driving a Black Dodge Durango.
After the suspect drove alongside the boys at a slow rate of speed, he parked in the driveway of a home and pulled out a handgun, a parent of each of the boys told the KSAT 12 Defenders.
One of the boys told the Defenders off-camera he heard the sounds of a shot being fired and a bullet whizzing by their heads.
The other boy called his father and said the same man was attempting to run him over with the vehicle.
The boys were eventually able to get safely inside a home.
Cellphone camera pictures and video provided to the Defenders by an eyewitness show LaCoste police and Medina County Sheriff’s Deputies storming the property the following day.
Two people, one of them a small child, were rushed out of the home in the footage.
Even though the video shows the Durango still parked in the driveway, Rodriguez did not appear to be there.
A parent of the one of the boys claims LaCoste Police Chief Johnny Kendricks failed to alert the public that a shooter was on the loose, or provided a suspect description to residents and that the department never took formal statements from the boys detailing what happened to them.
Kendricks, who briefly spoke with the Defenders off-camera last week, said he was told by city officials not to discuss the investigation, but did claim both boys gave statements after the incident that were recorded on department cameras.
After having asked for a copy of the incident report, Kendricks instructed the Defenders last week to file an open records request in writing at City Hall. To date, the city has not responded to that request.
Rodriguez faces an unrelated felony drug possession charge in Bexar County, stemming from a Dec. 26 arrest.
He is awaiting formal indictment on that charge, Bexar County court records show.