SAN ANTONIO – San Antonio Police Department investigators urged the public on Tuesday to help them crack several unsolved cases following a weekend of shootings in the Alamo City.
“Unfortunately, in this line of work it’s something that we deal with on a constant basis,” said San Antonio Police Officer Doug Greene, as he reflected on the hectic weekend.
“We had some homicides. Some people who were shot are in critical condition, as I speak, or in the hospital,” Greene said.
Around 11 a.m. Sunday, four people were shot, including a 38-year-old man who died from his injuries, at Mission Open Air Flea Market on the South Side. Investigators are calling the incident an apparent targeted shooting. The shopping area, usually considered safe, turned into a crime scene as investigators searched for evidence.
“Our job is just to respond as quickly as we can preserve the crime scene, try and get some of the immediate assistance to those victims and give them the proper care that they need,” Greene said.
About 12 hours later, a man was fatally shot in the parking lot of the Salado Creek Apartments on the Northeast Side and the suspect is still at large. In an unrelated incident about the same time, a 20-year-old man was gunned down outside of his Northwest side house on Meadow Range. Investigators charged 19-year-old Mason Alvardo with the murder on Monday.
These murders added to a heavy caseload for detectives who were already working a double shooting from Saturday night on Walzem Road, where 11-year-old cheerleader Donita Elizabeth Henry-Phillips was fatally shot.
”Being the family-oriented city that we live in, we know that this frustrates our whole community when we see something like this happen,” Greene said.
Greene is asking those with information on the cases to find the courage to come forward.
“I’d like to tell the people out there that have information that can be helpful to our case and just imagine themselves in the shoes of the family members of these victims,” Greene said.
There are two ways you can help investigators, and that’s by anonymously calling Crime Stoppers at 224-STOP, or the SAPD Homicide unit at 210 207 7635.