A 19-year-old Beaumont teen walked into a Golden Chick restaurant late Wednesday night frantically asking staff to check whether he had actually been shot, then collapsed near his white car in the parking lot after walking back outside. Police were called to the restaurant, located at the intersection of Concord Road and Lucas Street, shortly after 8 p.m., and the young man was rushed to a Beaumont hospital for treatment of wounds that police have since determined were not life-threatening.
According to KJAS.com, the victim had driven his white car to the parking lot before the shooting occurred somewhere on the north side of Beaumont overnight, though the exact circumstances remain unclear. The restaurant's night manager told the outlet that the teen repeatedly asked staff to verify whether he had been shot and seemed frantic as he told people what had happened to him. Staff locked the restaurant's doors following the incident, though the Golden Chick drive-through remained open. The teen also called relatives to tell them he had been shot, and his car was later found with at least one bullet hole, per the same account.
Separate dispatch records reviewed by 12NewsNow place the initial 911 call at 8:15 p.m. Wednesday to the Golden Chick in the 4900 block of Concord Road, where police determined the teen suffered non-life-threatening gunshot wounds to his torso. A family member told the station the victim had recently graduated from West Brook High School, one of two public high schools in the Beaumont Independent School District, which serves more than 2,100 students across grades 9 through 12, according to background compiled by Wikipedia.
Investigation Still Unfolding
Beaumont Police are investigating the shooting, but have not released details on a suspect or a motive as of Thursday. It also remains unclear whether the shooting happened directly at the restaurant or elsewhere before the teen drove to the Golden Chick, a question that has not yet been publicly answered by investigators.
The shooting adds to a string of recent violent incidents in Beaumont that Hoodline has tracked in recent weeks, including a fatal shooting on Broadmoor Drive and a shotgun blast that cost a man his leg. Those cases, along with this one, come as the city grapples with elevated violent crime figures — crime data compiled through August 2026 shows Beaumont's violent crime rate running roughly 105% above the national average, with a 1 in 128 annual risk of violent crime for residents, per statistics compiled by DoorProfit. Beaumont Police Department's own UCR/NIBRS reporting logged 124 aggravated assault cases through February 2026, compared to 121 during the same period in 2025.
Task Force and Council Scrutiny
In April, Beaumont law enforcement joined regional and federal partners to launch the Southeast Texas Violent Crime Task Force, aimed specifically at curbing gun violence and repeat offenders across the city. Whether that task force will be deployed to assist in this investigation has not been announced. Beaumont City Council members have also publicly raised concerns this year about crime in commercial parking lots like the one where this shooting occurred, pushing for more consistent law enforcement response in business districts.
If police identify a shooter, Texas law lays out steep potential penalties. Under Texas Penal Code Section 22.02, assault with a deadly weapon causing serious bodily injury is a second-degree felony carrying 2 to 20 years in prison and fines up to $10,000. If a firearm was intentionally discharged at or from a vehicle or building and caused serious bodily injury, the charge could be elevated to a first-degree felony under Section 22.02(b), punishable by 5 to 99 years or life in prison.
Treatment and Recovery Ahead
The teen was taken to a Beaumont hospital following the shooting; CHRISTUS Southeast Texas - St. Elizabeth Hospital on Calder Avenue serves as the city's designated Level III Trauma Center and is the primary facility for gunshot victims in the area. Should the victim need financial help covering medical costs, the Texas Crime Victims' Compensation Program, run by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas, offers up to $50,000 in assistance for eligible violent crime victims to cover out-of-pocket emergency medical and hospital bills.
