A man wanted for a shooting last Halloween that injured three people, including a 3-year-old girl, in San Francisco’s Potrero Hill neighborhood apparently killed himself Saturday evening after a shootout with police in Houston that injured two officers.
Jesse Brown, 20, was suspected in the gang-related shooting, which occurred on Oct. 31, 2010, near the intersection of 25th and Connecticut streets, San Francisco police Officer Albie Esparza said.
The 3-year-old girl was shot multiple times and her 52-year-old grandfather was hit once while trying to shield her with his body, police said.
Investigators believe the grandfather and girl were unintended victims of the attack and that the third victim, a 20-year-old man, was the target. All three survived, according to police.
Brown was identified as the suspect in the shooting and a warrant was issued for his arrest, but he remained at large until the shootout with officers in Houston this weekend, said Houston police spokesman John Cannon.
The incident began at about 5:15 p.m. local time at a Greyhound bus terminal just outside of downtown Houston where a Greyhound employee checking Brown’s bag saw the butt end of a gun in it, Cannon said.
The employee notified an off-duty police officer who was working an extra job as a security guard at the terminal. The officer tried to detain Brown, and he refused and started to reach into his duffel bag, according to Cannon.
The officer shot Brown with his Taser stun gun but it had no effect on him. Brown grabbed his gun and exchanged gunfire with the officer, who was struck once in the hand, Cannon said.
Brown then fled toward a McDonald’s restaurant across the street where he encountered two more Houston police officers and exchanged gunfire with them, Cannon said.
One of the two officers was hit in the leg, he said.
Brown continued fleeing and went into the parking garage of a bank a couple of blocks away. The Police Department’s SWAT team responded, surrounded the building, and used an armored vehicle to go through the garage level by level, Cannon said.
At some point the officers heard a single gunshot, and soon afterward found Brown in a fourth-floor stairwell, dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, according to Cannon.
After Brown was identified by the Harris County medical examiner’s office, police did a computer check and found that he had an outstanding arrest warrant out of San Francisco.
“We don’t know what he was doing in Houston, nor how long he had been here,” Cannon said. “From what San Francisco police tell us, he knew he was wanted in the shooting, and may have been on the run since.”
Brown was apparently headed to Georgia, where some of his family members live. Most of his family is based in San Francisco, Cannon said.
Houston police are trying to determine what he was doing in the city prior to Saturday’s shootout. Anyone with information is encouraged to call the Houston Police Department’s homicide division at (713) 222-TIPS or Crime Stoppers at (713) 222-TIPS.
Dan McMenamin, Bay City News
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