A shooting at a small-town Texas convenience store has investigators scrambling for answers, with the Duval County Sheriff's Office confirming it has identified multiple persons of interest but stopping short of naming suspects or confirming any arrests. The shooting happened around 9 p.m. Monday at a store in San Diego, Texas, the county seat of Duval County, leaving residents of the roughly 3,465-person town with more questions than facts.
According to KIII-TV, the shooting occurred at a store located at 311 S. Dr. E.E. Dunlap, which local business records identify as San Diego Food Market, a convenience store along the highway of the same name, according to Enigma Data. The Duval County Sheriff's Office has not released information about whether anyone was injured in the incident, nor has it disclosed what may have led to the shooting in the first place, the station reports.
In a public notice posted Tuesday, the sheriff's office went a step further than the station's initial report, explicitly stating that it has identified “multiple persons of interest” in connection with the case, according to a notice from the Duval County Sheriff's Office. That language is notable: investigators have not formally named suspects, confirmed any arrests, or announced charges as of the latest update. The station's report notes that deputies have declined to confirm whether anyone has been arrested in connection with the shooting.
A Small Town Scrambling For Information
San Diego sits in the Coastal Bend region along State Highway 44, roughly 56 miles west of Corpus Christi and 84 miles east of Laredo, according to Wikipedia. The Duval County Sheriff's Office is handling the investigation. Duval County is a rural stretch of South Texas covering roughly 1,793 square miles with an estimated 2025 population of just 9,402, per Data Commons.
The county's sparse population and limited resources are part of the broader backdrop here. A 2025 Texas Department of Public Safety border crime report noted that the Duval County Sheriff's Office did not submit official crime statistics that year due to a vendor technical issue during a law enforcement system transition, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety. The technical issue affected the office's submission for that year.
What Comes Next For The Investigation
The investigation remains ongoing, and deputies say they will release more information as it becomes available, the station's report notes. Officials have also asked witnesses and anyone with information about the shooting to contact the Duval County Sheriff's Office directly.
Should charges eventually be filed, Texas law offers a couple of likely frameworks. Under Texas Penal Code Section 22.02, committing an assault with or displaying a deadly weapon such as a firearm constitutes aggravated assault, a second-degree felony carrying 2 to 20 years in state prison and fines up to $10,000, according to the Texas Constitution and Statutes. Separately, knowingly discharging a firearm at or toward a person, building, or vehicle constitutes deadly conduct under Section 22.05, a third-degree felony punishable by 2 to 10 years in prison, per CriminalDefenseLawyer. No charges have been announced in this case, and it remains unclear which, if any, statute might eventually apply.
A Rural County's Backdrop
Duval County is the setting for the investigation, with San Diego serving as the seat of government for a population of roughly 9,400 spread across a sprawling, largely rural landscape.
Duval County's history forms part of the setting for an unresolved present: a quiet South Texas community waiting on deputies to say more about what happened at a convenience store on a Monday night.
