SAN ANTONIO – A man who lives at an Southeast Side apartment complex where one of San Antonio’s latest murders happened said he now realizes he walked right past the body of the victim, not knowing he was dead.
“(My girlfriend saw) him first and she was, like, ‘Ooh, what’s wrong with him?’ And I’m, like, ‘I don’t know. Don’t have nothing to do with us.’ So, we came on to the house,” the neighbor, who wanted to hide his identity, told KSAT.
The man was the only person at the Pecan Valley Golf Course apartments on Thursday morning who was willing to talk about the crime.
Jakayvin Jones, 22, was killed after suffering multiple gunshot wounds, the Bexar County Medical Examiner’s office said.
San Antonio police received the first shots fired call just after 10:30 p.m. Wednesday at the complex located near Pecan Valley Drive and East Southcross.
At the scene, officers told KSAT 12 News they initially had trouble locating the victim.
The neighbor said he witnessed police cars and ambulances driving around the area, seemingly unsure where to go.
“When police pulled up in the parking lot over here, he asked where Building 25 was,” the neighbor said. “I said, ‘It’s not Building 25. You mean (Apartment) 25?’”
He said he was able to steer officers in the right direction, still not realizing then that they were searching for a shooting victim.
In that dark corner of the parking lot, officers said they found a man in his 20s on the ground between two parked cars.
A police report stated that he was shot multiple times and died from his wounds.
Officers did not locate the shooter right away.
The neighbor said that when he saw the man’s body on the ground, he was able to dismiss it because strangers often make the sidewalks their home for the night.
“They sleep on the step,” the neighbor said. “They sleep on the ground.”
In hindsight, the neighbor said, he still doesn’t think stopping to check on the victim would’ve made a difference.
“There was nothing I could do about it,” he said.
The apartment complex has been the site of repeated trouble.
Figures from SAPD show that there have been nearly 40 incident calls there so far this year.
Among the calls was one for another shooting less than two weeks ago.
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