SAN ANTONIO – VIA bus shooting suspect Charles Adamson Jr. was already wanted by authorities on unrelated charges before Monday's shooting, law enforcement said.
An arrest warrant affidavit, related to a different incident and signed by a Bexar County magistrate Aug. 3, allowed law enforcement officers to arrest the 43-year-old on a charge of kidnapping.
Instead, Bexar County sheriff's investigators said Adamson boarded a VIA bus on Loop 107 in Adkins Monday morning and shot a man -- identified Tuesday afternoon as Arthur Rakowitz -- with whom he had argued.
Rakowitz was shot in the face and taken to San Antonio Military Medical Center. He is listed in stable condition following surgery Tuesday morning.
At the scene, sheriff's spokesman Paul Berry said Adamson then grabbed his bicycle off the front of the bus, tried to board it again, then finally pedaled away.
About an hour later, SWAT officers closed in on his home in the 100 block of Home Place Drive and eventually were able to talk him into coming out peacefully.
"I have children and you just never know. I mean, they play outside and it's just scary," said one neighbor -- who wanted to remain anonymous -- Tuesday morning.
The woman, who lives near Adamson, said she missed out on seeing the drama that unfolded Monday.
But she has seen Adamson many times, and considers him to be somewhat of a neighborhood mystery.
"Nobody actually spoke to him," she said. "The only thing I would see was him on his bike, going in front of my house."
The affidavit, though, sheds some light on him, painting a picture of someone with violent tendencies.
It stated that on Aug. 2, Adamson forced his mother at gunpoint to drive him from her home in San Antonio to his home.
The affidavit stated that Adamson was convinced his mother owed him $1,000, and ordered her to give him her bank number and Social Security number.
However, once they reached his home, his mother managed to escape, the affidavit stated.
As she was driving away, Adamson fired several shots, shattering her car window, the affidavit stated.
"We had warrants for his arrest on aggravated assault with a deadly weapon," Tackitt said Monday.
He said San Antonio police also had obtained a warrant regarding the kidnapping portion of the Aug. 2 incident.
On Tuesday morning, Wilson County detectives were back at Adamson's house, apparently acting on the warrant.
They collected shell casings and other evidence, reportedly from that earlier shooting, which were scattered across his yard.
Tackitt said his deputies attempted to serve San Antonio police's warrant, but whenever they went to his home, Adamson wouldn't open the door.
He had planned to use a Texas Ranger and a Department of Public Safety SWAT team to execute it early next week.
"Knowing that this had already happened prior, I would've thought that they would've come earlier to try to get him out of there," said the neighbor.
She said she wonders whether the bus shooting could have been prevented had the warrants been executed sooner.
Officer Roger Zuniga, a spokesman for SAPD, said although his agency had obtained an arrest warrant Aug. 3, detectives were not able to serve it because Adamson lives in a different county.
Zuniga said it was up to the Wilson County Sheriff's Office to execute the warrant.
SAPD detectives contacted Wilson County on two occasions — Aug. 2 and Aug. 7 — to make that happen, Zuniga said.
A call placed to Wilson County Sheriff Joe Tackitt for comment Tuesday morning was not returned immediately.
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