SAN ANTONIO – People in a Northwest Side neighborhood are still trying to shake off the after-effects of a frightening morning which included burglars shooting at a car owner.
San Antonio police responded to the 8100 block of Babe Ruth after 4:30 a.m. Tuesday for a call about shots fired.
They arrived and found that no people had been hit, only property.
A bullet hole was clearly visible in the hood of an SUV in the driveway of a home.
Investigators at the scene told KSAT 12 News that the intended victim had interrupted a car burglary outside that home.
Giovanni Mendez, who lives a few blocks over, was putting out his recycle bin when he heard the commotion.
“I hear, in the distance, yelling going on, like, ‘Hey!’ and “Go, go, go, go!’ And all of a sudden you hear about nine rounds go off,” Mendez said. “I ran inside and told my wife, ‘Hey, gunshots!”
Mendez said he jumped in his car and drove in the direction of the noise.
That’s where he says he came across police who were just arriving at the scene.
He says he also noticed several vehicles all along Babe Ruth that appeared to have been burglarized.
The doors on those vehicles, Mendez said, were left wide open.
Back on his own street, he had noticed a similar sight involving his neighbor’s truck.
“I thought it was kind of weird. I grabbed my flashlight and checked it out and realized it was broken into,” he said.
Mendez also grabbed his phone and took pictures of the truck’s open door and what appeared to be a broken steering column.
It was evidence, he says, that the burglars had been busy throughout his neighborhood just before the situation escalated to the shooting.
Still, Mendez says he has one thing to be glad about—that none of his neighbors was hurt.