A San Antonio Police Officer shot a shoplifting suspect on the city's west side early today, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
Police were called to the 7-11 at Culebra and Zarzamora about 1:30 AM. When they arrived, they found the suspect in his car.
Assistant Chief James Flavin says the suspect would not get out of the car when ordered, and started screaming at officers.
"The driver refused to cooperate, and was very agitated, and yelled 'go head and kill me!' numerous times to the officers," he said.
Two officers were on the scene, and one tried to subdue the suspect with a Taser.
"The officer ended up tasing the driver unsuccessfully," he said. "He tased him twice, and the Taser had no effect."
At that point, the officer who 'tased' the suspect say that he had a gun with him in the car.Flavin says the officers backed away, but the suspect put the car in gear and started driving.
"The driver then put it in gear and tried to drive away. One of the officers felt that the safety of the officers was in danger fired multiple rounds and struck the suspect."
He says the 41 year old man was rushed to the hosptial and is in surgery, but is expected to survive.
The officer who fired the rounds, a rookie with about one year on the force, will be placed on desk duty while an internal investigation is conducted, which is standard practice for incidents like this.