A 15-year-old boy was shot in the leg Monday night after a fight broke out at a home on San Antonio's Southwest Side, and as of Tuesday morning, no arrests had been made. Officers responded to the intersection of Royston Avenue and Marian Street around 9:30 p.m. for a reported shooting, and the suspected shooter had already fled before they arrived.
According to KSAT, San Antonio police are still investigating what led up to the shooting. A preliminary police report said officers found the teenage boy with a gunshot wound to his leg, though his condition was not listed. A witness told police the shooting stemmed from a fight between the teen and two other people.
The alleged shooter is described in the report as a male between 15 and 20 years old. No arrest had been made connected to the case as of Tuesday morning, and the investigation remains ongoing, the outlet notes.
A Pattern of Teen Gun Violence on the Southwest Side
This is not the first time a dispute among young people on San Antonio's Southwest Side has escalated into gunfire this year. Hoodline previously reported on a 14-year-old shot on a quiet block in March, and in September, a teen was shot near Bynum and Briggs avenues after an altercation with people he recognized. In July, a robbery on the Southwest Side spiraled into a deadly shootout involving teenagers, and in August, masked teens opened fire near a home following a fight tied to Highlands High School.
The pattern is playing out even as San Antonio's overall violent crime numbers have been falling. Citywide violent street crime dropped 21.1% in 2025 compared to 2024, with aggravated assaults down 19.8% and homicides down 18.5%, according to UT San Antonio criminology research. Police recorded 105 homicides in 2025, a steep drop from 127 in 2024, 165 in 2023 and a modern peak of 231 in 2022, per an analysis by KSAT in a separate report.
Juvenile Referrals Tell a Different Story
While adult violent crime has retreated, the numbers around juvenile offenders have not followed the same downward curve. Juvenile aggravated assault referrals in Bexar County reached 222 through August 2026, up from 214 over the same stretch in 2025, according to the Bexar County Juvenile Probation Department. Annual juvenile violent crime referrals countywide totaled 539 in 2024 and stood at 514 through October 2025, with juvenile court judges noting ongoing concerns about repeat offenses among young people, as reported by KSAT in a December 2025 story.
Statewide, the stakes of youth gun access remain stark: firearms were the leading cause of death among Texas children and teens aged 1 to 17 in 2024, according to the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions. A separate joint investigation reported by The New York Times found that more than 47,000 Texas students aged 10 to 13 were referred for criminal prosecution following school or youth incidents between 2014 and 2025.
What Could Happen If the Shooter Is Caught
If the alleged shooter is identified and falls on the younger end of the 15-to-20 age range described in the police report, the legal path forward could diverge sharply depending on age. Under Texas Penal Code Section 22.02, committing an assault while using or exhibiting a deadly weapon such as a firearm constitutes aggravated assault, a second-degree felony carrying 2 to 20 years in prison and fines up to $10,000, according to legal summaries on FindLaw. For a 15-year-old suspect, Texas Family Code Section 54.02 allows juvenile court judges to waive exclusive jurisdiction and transfer the case to adult criminal court when the youth is accused of a second-degree felony or higher.
Whether the teenager and the two people he reportedly fought with knew each other beforehand has not been established, and investigators have not said whether they are pursuing the case through juvenile or adult channels. For now, San Antonio police continue to ask anyone with information about the shooting near Royston Avenue and Marian Street to come forward as the search for the shooter continues.
