A man in his 30s was shot in the groin during what he described as a fight on San Antonio's West Side early Tuesday, but police say they can't confirm where or how it actually happened. Officers responded around 3:30 a.m. to the area of Culebra Road near Callaghan Road, where the victim told investigators he had gotten into an altercation and was shot. He was taken to a San Antonio hospital and is expected to recover, currently listed in stable condition.
According to KABB Fox San Antonio, the victim told officers the shooting happened at a nearby dollar store, but when investigators searched the area, they were unable to locate a crime scene. Police say there are now questions about the victim's account of what happened, and he has not provided any information about a possible suspect. No arrests have been made, and San Antonio police are still investigating.
Separately, KSAT pinpointed the scene where officers actually responded as the 5500 block of Culebra Road near Harefield Drive, a stretch of the busy commercial corridor that cuts through the West Side. Investigators are still working to determine exactly where and how the shooting occurred, a gap between the victim's story and the physical evidence on the ground that has left the case without a confirmed location days like this often require to move forward.
A Corridor With a Troubling Pattern
This is far from the first violent, unresolved-looking shooting to hit the Culebra Road corridor this year. Just two days earlier, a man was shot in the head near West Poplar Street on the West Side, another case where investigators initially faced uncertainty about how the shooting occurred, as Hoodline previously reported. That same week, a teenager was shot in the leg during a robbery and fled to a friend's home nearby.
Earlier this summer, in July, a pre-dawn drive-by shooting near Clock Lane and Merida Street left a man hospitalized with a bullet wound to his arm and ribs, with police recovering multiple shell casings at that scene. In June, a driver was found critically shot on Culebra Road itself. And in April, a man was shot in the leg off Florencia Avenue near Culebra Road before driving to another location entirely just to call for help. A February shooting near Culebra Road and Northwest 27th Street left a 35-year-old man critically injured with a gunshot wound to the neck, though in that case police detained a suspect shortly afterward.
Citywide Numbers Tell a Different Story
The recurring violence along this stretch of the West Side stands in contrast to San Antonio's broader crime trends. Homicides across the city fell 8% during the first half of 2026 compared to the same period last year, pushing the city's homicide rate 12% below pre-pandemic levels, according to a Council on Criminal Justice analysis reported by the San Antonio Report.
An evaluation by University of Texas at San Antonio criminologists, also detailed by that outlet, found an 18.5% drop in homicides and a 21.1% drop in violent street crime in 2025 compared to 2024, following the rollout of the city's Violent Crime Reduction Plan. City data presented to the San Antonio City Council showed violent crimes against persons fell 9% overall in 2025, from 31,179 reported cases in 2024 down to 28,361, driven largely by fewer aggravated assaults and homicides, per KSAT's earlier report on that data. The plan itself relies on breaking the city into a grid of 300-meter cells to identify hotspots for targeted, high-visibility patrols, a strategy UTSA criminologists described to CNN.
What Charges Could Follow
If investigators eventually identify a shooter, Texas law classifies assault with a deadly weapon or one causing serious bodily injury as aggravated assault, a second-degree felony carrying two to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000. But if police ultimately conclude the victim knowingly gave a false account to deceive investigators, Texas law also treats a material false statement made to law enforcement during a criminal investigation as a Class B misdemeanor, punishable by up to 180 days in jail and a $2,000 fine. For now, no charges have been filed against anyone, and the case remains open as detectives try to reconcile what the victim described with what they found — or didn't find — at the scene.
