A wounded man fled a shooting scene on San Antonio's North Side early Monday, and police say the ankle monitor he was wearing helped them track him down at a second location. Officers responded to the 3800 block of West Avenue just after 3 a.m. after a woman called to report that she had shot her boyfriend, according to the man's girlfriend's account relayed to police.
Police arrived to find evidence at the scene indicating the man had been struck by gunfire, but he was already gone by the time officers got there, according to WOAI. Investigators were able to use GPS data from the man's ankle monitor to locate him at a separate address, the outlet reported. Bexar County Pretrial Services and local courts routinely use active GPS satellite ankle monitors to track defendants on conditional release, giving supervision staff and law enforcement the ability to pull location history during active investigations, according to the Houston Chronicle.
The woman who called police was detained at the scene. As of the report, officers had not yet made contact with the man, meaning key questions — including who initiated the confrontation and whether charges will be filed — remain unanswered. The investigation is ongoing, per the same outlet's report.
A Corridor With a Violent Past
The stretch of West Avenue where the shooting happened has seen violence before. In 2015, 40-year-old Dominic Spiller was killed inside his apartment on the 3800 block of West Avenue in a domestic-related shooting, a case that led to murder charges against two men following a police investigation into prior domestic disturbance calls at the same residence, according to KSAT. Investigators at the time noted Spiller was shot through a window after earlier domestic dispute calls to the residence.
Just two days before Monday's shooting, San Antonio Police were also investigating the discovery of a decomposed body with gunshot wounds near West Avenue and Wurzbach Parkway, not far from the latest incident, Hoodline previously reported. That case, in which a passerby fishing near a drainage basin spotted the remains around 7:50 p.m., remains a separate investigation, according to KENS 5.
What Texas Self-Defense Law Says
Because the woman reported shooting her boyfriend, the case raises questions under Texas's self-defense statutes. Under Texas Penal Code § 9.32, a person is legally justified in using deadly force if they reasonably believe it is immediately necessary to protect against another's unlawful use of deadly force or to prevent violent crimes such as murder or sexual assault, per FindLaw. The law requires that the belief of immediate danger be objectively reasonable under the circumstances.
Separately, Texas Penal Code § 9.31(e) eliminates any legal duty to retreat before using force, so long as the person has a legal right to be where they are, did not provoke the confrontation, and was not engaged in criminal activity at the time, according to FindLaw. Whether those protections apply here has not been determined, since police have not yet interviewed the wounded man and the investigation remains open.
How the Monitor Helped Investigators
Electronic monitoring has become a routine investigative tool for Bexar County law enforcement. Ankle monitors worn by probationers and defendants in the county generate roughly 8,500 system alerts per month, though officials say the vast majority stem from weak batteries or schedule departures rather than active escapes, per a report from KENS 5. Probation officers must sift through that volume of alerts while trying to locate wearers who go missing from expected locations.
Why the man was wearing a monitor in the first place has not been disclosed, and it is unclear whether it was tied to a prior case unrelated to Monday's shooting.
Domestic Violence Calls Remain a Heavy Burden Locally
The shooting adds to a grim pattern in Bexar County, where domestic violence calls are frequent and dangerous for responding officers. The San Antonio Police Department responds to more than 40,000 domestic and family violence calls annually, according to the Community Collaborative for Domestic Violence, making such calls among the most common and hazardous for patrol officers. Bexar County has also recorded an intimate partner homicide rate of 2.8 per 100,000 females, notably higher than the Texas statewide average of 1.6 per 100,000, per the same organization's data.
Survivors of domestic violence in Bexar County have access to the Safety Team Active Response, or STAR, program, which connects 9-1-1 domestic violence callers to case managers and emergency shelter options within 24 hours of an incident, according to the San Antonio Report. The program also conducts lethality risk assessments for survivors following emergency police dispatches.
Monday's shooting comes even as San Antonio has seen an overall decline in violent crime. The city recorded a 21.1% drop in violent crime in 2025 compared to the previous year, with homicides falling 18.5% and aggravated assaults dropping nearly 20% under SAPD's data-driven Violent Crime Reduction Plan, developed with UT San Antonio criminologists, according to UT San Antonio. The plan focuses resources on high-crime hotspots and high-risk individuals across the city.
Police have not released the identities of either the woman or the man, and no charges had been announced as of the latest report. Hoodline will update this story as more information becomes available.
