SAN ANTONIO – The new year had a violent start with multiple shootings on Thursday across the city, leaving two people dead and at least four others injured.
Just after the San Antonio rang in the new year, a 9-year-old boy was hit in the leg by a stray bullet while sitting on his family’s porch on the East Side. He was treated by and released from a local hospital.
The San Antonio Police Department is still looking for the person who fired the shot, presumably during New Year’s Eve celebrations.
A short time later, a man told officers he was shot in the hand by a woman who approached him on the North Side and demanded money.
The first homicide of 2026 took place around 2:30 a.m. Thursday after a 37-year-old man was shot and killed outside of a West Side bar.
Police said he was involved in a dispute with two other people and was shot as he was getting in his truck to leave.
Officers said they believe there are at least two suspects connected to the shooting, but they got away.
Stout House, the bar where the fight occurred on Potranco Road, was the scene of another deadly shooting last May, when police said a security guard shot and killed a man who fired a gun at a group of people during a fight.
The second homicide of the year occurred after a dispute inside a North Side home.
A 45-year-old man died in the shooting, SAPD said, and a 37-year-old was detained after telling a neighbor “he had shot someone.”
“Police were everywhere. Neighbors were standing out there,” said Lynda Gonzales, who lives across the street. “(I’m) very surprised that it happened. I’ve been here a little over six years and never had anything like this.”
Gonzales said she had hopes for a peaceful start to the new year.
However, after seeing the violence close to home and across the city, her hopes are fading.
“I don’t understand all the hatred,” Gonzales said. “We need to pray more. It’s going to be different in 2026, and I was hoping it was just going to be better.”
Later Thursday night, a man and a woman were injured after the man mishandled a gun inside a Southeast Side apartment.
While investigating the shooting at the apartment, officers said they arrested a second man in connection with explosives that were found in the unit.
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