Houston police officer disarms heavily armed gunman at Galleria Mall
Houston - It isn’t often we are fortunate enough to tell about a mass shooting that was avoided, but today we are doing just that. It happened at Houston’s Galleria Mall. A Houston Police Officer took down a man with an assault rifle, a pistol, and dozens of rounds of ammunition.
Not only was Guido Herrera walking around the Galleria Mall with an AR-15 Assault rifle strapped around him, a .45 tucked in his pants and a bible in his hand, the Houston Police Officer that wrestled the rifle away from him says he believes Herrera was also armed with deadly intentions.
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"I noticed the gun was pointed towards my thigh, and I was just, at that moment everything was like slow motion," explains HPD Sgt. Kendrick Simpo.
The pictures of what Herrera was carrying with him are shocking because you don’t expect to find shoppers at Galleria carrying an arsenal. Sgt. Kendrick Simpo was working off-duty at the Galleria and received reports of a man in the mall carrying an AR-15 Assault Rifle. Within seconds, Sgt. Simpo spotted the man.
"He had on a leather mask with spikes in it. It covered everything, but it just left his eyes out, but he actually had on gloves as well," says Simpo.
He was also wearing a Marvel vigilante The Punisher t-shirt. The sergeant walked right up to the man with the rifle and rushed him.
"And quickly grabbed the rifle. As we were wrestling with the rifle, I tried to rip it out of his hand. I didn’t realize he had it on a sling."
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It was all happening inside Galleria on a busy Saturday in February as kids packed the place for a dance competition at the Westin.
"I was wrestling with him and trying to yell at the kids to get into the room. I knew I could possibly get shot, but my main focus was I wasn’t going to let go of the gun," Simpo says.
Sgt. Simpo had Herrera pinned against the wall and other officers arrived to help.
"Then we took him to the ground, and we noticed he had the actual handgun in his front waistband. As we went through his pockets, we kept pulling out ammo after ammo, magazine after magazine."
Herrera was arrested with 130 rounds of rifle ammunition alone, and carrying a Bible bookmarked to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.
"That bookmark of that scripture was talking about a mass killing," says Simpo.
Days later, while out of jail on bond, Herrera went to the federal building with a loaded gun asking to see the FBI Director, to which he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor unlawful carry of a weapon. However, he says he’s not guilty of disorderly conduct at the mall.
"Mr. Herrera was walking in the Galleria with a long gun, which we can all agree is not a great decision, but he wasn’t waving it around. He wasn’t pointing it at anybody," says Herrera’s Attorney Will Vaughn.
So why did he have two guns and all of that ammunition?
"I can’t really tell you a whole lot about his intentions. It’s subject to attorney-client privilege," Vaughn explains.
For the two misdemeanor charges, unlawful carry of a weapon and disorderly conduct, a jury sentenced Herrera to one year in jail just last week, which Sgt. Simpo says isn't long enough. Herrera’s attorneys are actually appealing the disorderly conduct charge.
Herrera is from Argentina. He’s now under an immigration hold and facing deportation back to Argentina after completing his sentence.
"Definitely think I avoided a major casualty happening inside the Galleria Mall. Luckily, I had angels with me that day. I’m a man of God and it just all worked out," says Sgt. Simpo.