SAN ANTONIO – San Antonio police are still looking for the shooter who killed a man in his 20s at an apartment complex on the Northwest Side.
SAPD swarmed the Aspire Apartments in the 1800 block of Bandera Road Monday afternoon after a caller reported hearing roughly four to six gunshots and saw a body lying face down on the sidewalk.
When police arrived, Sgt. Edward Hollifield said they found a man who had been shot once in the chest. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Police believe the victim, who wasn’t immediately identified, was shot somewhere else in the complex before he possibly walked over to the parking lot area and collapsed.
Police said they do not know what led up to the shooting, and they did not find a gun near the victim.
Beyond a general description, police haven’t identified a suspect. However, Hollifield said he took off in a black vehicle.
SAPD’s Homicide Unit was handling the investigation, though Hollifield confirmed the gang unit was at the scene. Asked if that was because the incident was gang-related or as a precaution, Hollifield said it was “probably precaution. They do work pretty close to this location here.”
Hollifield said police did not know what type of gun was used, but Pauline Wild, who lives at the complex, told KSAT it sounded like shotgun blasts.
Wild said she was sitting at her kitchen table when she heard three shots. She saw a “girl” come from the direction of where the body was found, looking like she was going to collapse, before “some guy” took her and they took off in a vehicle.
Wild then saw another man run into an apartment and back out into the parking lot. Later, she saw police enter an apartment.
“They went in with their guns drawn, yelling that it was the police. Quite a few went in there. They came back out without anybody,” she said.
KSAT saw a man in handcuffs at the apartment, but it was not clear what role he might have had in the investigation. Hollifield said police were talking to people in the area, but he “wasn’t aware” of anyone handcuffed.
It’s at least the second time SAPD has responded to a shooting at the complex in the past week.
On Feb. 21, an 18-year-old woman was rushed to the hospital after she was found shot multiple times in one of the apartments. Police said neighbors heard a man and woman arguing shortly before the shooting.
Henrietta Lopez lives at the Aspire Apartments and says police are there regularly.
“I just called my dad crying, telling him, like, ‘I’m scared I can’t live here anymore. I can’t even bring my kids here anymore.’ So I’m just trying to figure out how I can move,” Lopez said.
KSAT tried to talk with apartment management, but a woman at the leasing office said “no comment” from behind a locked door before we could ask anything.
You can listen to the sergeant in the video player below: