"It was very scary," Houston driver details frightening moments of road rage shooting caught on camera
HOUSTON - A Houston man feels fortunate to be alive after another driver opened fire on him in a road rage incident and it was all caught on camera.
It happened in Northeast Houston on Beltway 8. In the video, you can clearly see a driver with his arm out the window pointing a gun at the man beside him in broad daylight.
"I have that screenshot permanently stuck in my head. It’s not every day you see somebody with their gun hanging out the window," says Jerry who witnessed the road rage incident on Saturday afternoon around 4:00 p.m.
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As shots were fired on the Beltway near Woodforest Boulevard, turns out it was Jerry’s friend Tyler, who was being shot at, they say by a man in an SUV pulling a trailer. And Jerry's dash camera caught it all.
"It was very scary, surreal," says Tyler.
In that same video, Jerry can be heard screaming at one point, "Stop. Slow down. Let him go. Let him go,"
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Tyler was following Jerry, moving slowly up the two-lane Ship Channel Bridge, and shortly after reaching the other side where the freeway opens to three lanes is when they say another driver set his sites on Tyler.
"There was no incident that said ‘hey, this is the reason why,'" Jerry explains. "We were all bumper to bumper. We were doing 30 miles an hour."
"And then the next thing I know it’s boom, boom, boom and I’m like 'yo this dude's shooting a gun right now,'" Tyler adds.
Without so much as a license plate, Harris County Precinct 3 Constable’s Office put a host of officers on the shooting, and with good police work within a day they arrested Irvin Alexis Guevara. Chief Kirk Bonsal says the pistol was found in Guevara’s SUV when he was arrested.
"The subject was arrested for Unlawful Carrying of a Weapon," Chief Bonsal said. "During his arrest, he was shown a still photo of a man hanging a pistol out of that vehicle and he identified himself as the person hanging the pistol out of that vehicle."
Because violent road rage is on the rise in the Houston area every local law enforcement agency recently teamed up.
"The Houston Police Department, The Texas Department of Public Safety, all eight constables, the Harris County Sheriff’s Office to combat road rage," says Chief Bonsal. "There’s always been road rage incidents reported but recently we’ve seen more guns involved in these incidents."
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We caught up with Tyler and Jerry shortly after they came face to face with the man again. This time it was to identify him in a lineup.
"It definitely made me count my blessings," Tyler says. "Life is not guaranteed. It’s just like surreal, like a life-changing moment."
"I wake up every morning at 4:30 a.m. [and] it seems every morning I wake up there’s a road rage shooting," Jerry adds.
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Certainly, road rage has become something officers say will not be tolerated and Chief Bonsal has this message for anyone feeling themselves becoming frustrated on the road.
"Take a deep breath," he said. "It’s not worth the trouble that’s coming your way with the criminal justice system because we will catch you."
Guevara does have a criminal history including charges of theft and drug possession. Law enforcement wants to know if this guy has done this before and perhaps the victim just didn’t report it. If so, Precinct 3 wants to hear from you.