A Houston man in his 40s was shot in the ankle and buttocks Tuesday night after a confrontation with a stranger just outside a corner store near Liberty Road and Staples Street. He made it back home despite his injuries and called for help himself, and he's now recovering from wounds that police say are non-life-threatening.
The shooting happened around 10:20 p.m. Tuesday, according to Click2Houston, which reported that the man had just left a nearby corner store when he ran into an unknown individual. What followed was a confrontation for reasons that remain unclear, and the other person opened fire, striking him in the ankle and buttocks before he was able to get away.
Rather than collapsing at the scene, the wounded man managed to walk home and call for help from there. The Houston Fire Department then transported him to a nearby hospital, where his injuries were deemed non-life-threatening. As of the report's publication, the shooter had not been identified, and the Houston Police Department is handling the investigation.
A Familiar, Troubling Pattern Near Corner Stores
Confrontations outside Houston corner stores have turned violent before, though HPD has not said whether this case connects to any earlier incident. In one instance this past June, officers responded to a shooting outside a convenience store in the 5400 block of Birdwood Road near Braesmont Drive at about 6:50 p.m., where they found a man suffering from a gunshot wound in the parking lot, according to ABC13. The victim, later identified as 28-year-old Ismail Ali, was pronounced dead by Houston Fire Department paramedics.
Detectives in that case said surveillance video showed a fight broke out moments before shots were fired, the station reported. Police ultimately arrested a 16-year-old male suspect without incident and referred him to Harris County Juvenile Probation Authorities on a charge of murder.
Another Shooting Once Struck the Same Stretch of Liberty Road
Liberty Road itself has seen deadly gun violence tied to a corner store before. Officers once responded to a shooting call at a corner food store located at 3801 Liberty Road near Hutton Street just before 10 p.m., per the same outlet's earlier reporting, in an incident that left a 29-year-old man dead and a 33-year-old man hospitalized with a gunshot wound to the arm.
Witnesses in that case told police they saw two Black men flee the scene in a red Dodge Charger with tinted windows and a sunroof, and HPD released surveillance photos of the vehicle hoping someone would recognize it. Investigators said at the time that they did not believe the two shootings were related and had not determined the motives or suspects involved. HPD has made no such statement connecting that older case to Tuesday night's shooting near Staples Street.
For now, the man shot Tuesday night is recovering, and the person who shot him remains unidentified. HPD's investigation into the confrontation is ongoing, and no additional details about a suspect or motive have been released.
