CUSTOMER WHO SHOT DEAD ARMED ROBBER NOT LIKELY TO BE INDICTED

Grand jury will consider case involving customer who fatally shot robber at SW Houston taco shop, police say

 

By Ana Gonzalez,  Brittany Taylor and Bryce Newberry

 

Click2Houston

January 9, 2023

 

                                                                               Eric Eugene Washington (lower left insert), a 30-year-old parolee, was shot dead by a customer as he robbed patrons of a restaurant with a plastic gun.

 

HOUSTON – Houston police said on Monday that the case involving a customer who fatally shot a robbery suspect at a southwest Houston taco shop will be referred to a grand jury.

The customer, whose identity was not released, was questioned by homicide detectives after his attorney representing him reached out to investigators on Sunday to set up a time to talk.

Police said that he is not arrested nor will face any charges at this time.

“The 12 Harris County grand jurors will look at that video as many times as they think they need to to make the ultimate determination of whether this is a righteous shooting,” KPRC 2 Legal Analyst Brian Wice said.

It’s not yet clear how soon a grand jury could hear the case.

 Note: The faces of the customers in the taco shop have been blurred, as they are not involved in the direct shooting.

 

What happened?

HPD officers responded to reports of a shooting at The Ranchito #4 taqueria in the 6900 block of South Gessner Road at around 11:30 p.m. on Thursday.

Police said a masked man with what was believed to be a “plastic gun” pointed it at customers who were eating inside the restaurant and demanded their wallets and money.

“The fact that this perpetrator had a fake gun makes no difference,” Wice said. “Everybody who was present that night, including the shooter, had no way of knowing.”

When the robber walked past a man sitting in one of the booths, surveillance video shows him getting up from his seat, pulling a gun, and shooting the robber nine times.

“Once he fires that first shot, if his belief was reasonable, that belief continues until the threat has been totally dissipated,” Wice said.

Police said the shooter recovered the stolen money from the robber’s pocket and returned the money to other patrons.

The customer and other patrons did not stay at the scene before officers arrived.

Who is the suspect?

Houston police identified the suspect as 30-year-old Eric Eugene Washington.

DPS and court documents reveal that Washington was out on bond at the time of the robbery for an assault of a family member charge from December. He was due back in court later this month.

In 2015, a jury sentenced Washington to serve 15 years in prison on a 2013 aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon charge, court documents show. Prosecutors initially charged him with capital murder in the 2013 case, but records show the jury instead convicted him of the lesser charge of aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon. Records show he got parole in early 2021.

“Will the grand jury care? Yes, because they will see that this man had a track record of being a stone-cold, card-carry, no doubt about it, aggravated robber,” Wice said.