A father and licensed gun owner in Texas allegedly caught a “peeping Tom” masturbating just outside his 10-year-old daughter’s window on Sunday, leading to a pursuit that ended with the dad shooting the suspect at a nearby gas station, according to ABC 7.
Harris County Sheriff’s deputies said a husband and wife confronted an intoxicated individual after they heard their daughter scream from her bedroom around 10 p.m. after she saw the man pleasuring himself outside her window.
The young girl’s father said she had complained about seeing a man watching her through the window before, but the couple didn’t believe it was true.
“She looks over at the window and this guy is at her window,” the girl’s mother, who asked to remain anonymous, told KPRC-TV. “He took my daughter’s innocence away.”
The couple, both legally armed with handguns, attempted to detain the suspect, demanding that he lie down on the lawn until law enforcement arrived. The man refused to comply with the mother and father’s commands, walking to a gas station across the street.
The couple followed the suspect, and deputies say the wife held the man outside the station as her husband went inside to call the police. The suspect then wrestled the firearm out of the woman’s hands and pointed it at her, authorities said.
“He is wrestling with me, with my gun, and I’m like, ‘I’m not going to let you get my gun, you are not going to kill me or shoot me,’” she said. “My husband just said he heard a ‘ca, ca,’ but by that time the guy had already grabbed me, got my gun and pulled it on myself.”
Fearing that the suspect would shoot his wife, the husband opened fire, shooting the suspect between three and four times.
The sheriff’s office said the suspect was transported to a nearby hospital where he is in critical but stable condition. No one else was injured during the confrontation.
“We didn’t want this guy to get shot. We were waiting for police to detain him because I’m pretty sure if he did this to my children, he’s doing it to a lot of other children out here,” she told the local news outlet. “We are praying for the suspect and we are also praying for his family.”
The Harris County District Attorney’s Office will handle a grand jury review of the incident, deputies said.
Earlier this month, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott quietly signed HB 1927 into law, allowing all eligible Texan gunowners to carry handguns without a firearms license beginning Sept. 1.
The law will enable eligible Texas residents – who are over age 21 and not overwise prohibited by state or federal law from possessing a gun – to carry a firearm, either openly or concealed, without needing a permit or training.
