SAN ANTONIO – San Antonio police say they found the body of a 27-year-old man lying in the intersection of El Charro and Nacogdoches roads after 11 p.m. Monday.
Police described the shooting of the as-yet unidentified man on the busy far Northeast side street as "brazen."
At first, police at the scene said the victim had been run down by an older model white pickup truck and shot. However, a written police report mentions only that he was shot.
The report stated that witnesses told officers they saw the pickup make a U-turn on El Charro Road and stop next to the victim.
Two men then got out and shot him, hitting him four times, while a third man drove the getaway vehicle, the report said.
"There was someone with (the victim)," said Officer Matthew Porter, spokesman for SAPD. "According to him, one of the suspects, once they got out of the vehicle, told him to run (away), at which point he did."
Detectives spent part of the overnight hours questioned the dead man's companion about the incident. Early on, they said the shooting appeared to be gang-related, or possibly tied to a drug deal.
"It appears that our victim was the intended target," Porter said. "Why the shooting occurred, that's something that the investigators will look into."
Porter said the shooters were "brazen" to pull off this sort of crime at the busy intersection.
The police report stated that they also showed their faces to a worker at a nearby drive through. It said the driver stopped shortly before the shooting to ask whether the worker had seen a tattooed man, and in which direction he was traveling.
As of 11:30 a.m. on Tuesday, the medical examiner's office still had not made contact with the dead man's family. The police report listed him as homeless.