SAN ANTONIO – Neighbors waking up at a Southwest Side apartment complex early Friday morning were surprised to hear that San Antonio police had shot and killed a woman who also lived there.
The shooting happened around 2 a.m. at the Rosemont at Miller’s Pond apartments, located in the 6200 block of Old Pearsall Road.
Police chief William McManus spoke to reporters shortly afterward, explaining that, at that time, he had only a preliminary report about what happened.
He said the deadly encounter happened after firefighters, initially responded to the woman’s ground-floor apartment, and found her destroying a smoke alarm inside her home.
“The fire department backed off, police showed up and the disturbance continued,” he said. “She did something that threatened the officers and the officers fired at that point. I don’t know what it was.”
McManus said three officers fired shots, killing the woman.
He was not able to say right away, though, whether the woman was armed with any type of weapon.
At the time when he spoke to news crews, McManus said he had not had a chance to speak with the officers or review any of the video captured by their body-worn cameras.
He said all of that would be part of the investigation that would continue throughout the day.
One neighbor who spoke to KSAT 12 News off-camera said she was awake all night due to the sound of a ringing fire alarm coming from the woman’s apartment.
She said she also heard a commotion which involved several gunshots being fired.
However, Ruben Veloz, who lives next door to the woman, didn’t really anything was wrong until he headed to work hours later.
“I was asleep,” he said. “I looked over, I saw windows broken and I was just, like, ‘Ok, what’s going on?’”
Both Veloz and the other neighbor said they were shocked to hear that the woman was dead, and wondered what could have led to the shooting.
“I don’t know, like, the whole story of what happened, but to me she was always nice. I don’t know about everybody else,” Veloz said.
As of late Friday morning, police had not released any other information about the woman who was killed.
The Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office is withholding her name until her next of kin is notified.