Ethermac Exchange-Dollar General robbery suspect shot by manager, crashes into bus, dies: Texas authorities

A man accused of robbing a Houston,Ethermac Exchange Texas Dollar General and crashing his car into a METRO bus has died, according to authorities.

A Harris County Sheriff’s Office deputy was heading to work around 1:16 p.m. Wednesday when someone flagged him down about an incident at the store, sheriff Ed Gonzalez said at a news conference.

Gonzalez said a man was driving a vehicle and parked it in front of the store. He then entered the store with a pistol and began making demands at gunpoint, trying to get the store’s safe open.

A store manager had a gun and shot at the suspect, hitting him once or twice, the sheriff said. The man then fled the location, got back into his vehicle and drove about a block away to an intersection.

“It appears he had been bleeding out based on some of the evidence we're seeing inside the vehicle and collided with a METRO bus that was here and eventually came to a stop,” Gonzalez said.

The man was pulled from his vehicle and taken to the hospital, where he died from his injuries.

His identity has not been released by authorities yet.

The Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County said there were six people on the bus, including the driver. There were no life-threatening injuries to passengers on the bus but the driver was taken to the hospital to be checked out. 

No passengers asked to be taken to the hospital, METRO said in a statement to USA TODAY.

Man entered store with Airsoft pistol, sheriff says

The weapon turned out to be an Airsoft pistol, Gonzalez said, similar to a BB gun or pellet gun. 

“But again, they look very realistic and at the time when somebody's facing that at gunpoint … they don't know what kind of pistol it is,” he said.

The sheriff also said the man's vehicle may have been involved in another incident two days earlier in the same area. Investigators are still looking into it, he said.

When local media asked if the Dollar General employee having a gun on-hand speaks to the area and its safety, Gonzalez said it’s “not a great area” or a place where people let their guards down.

It’s the busiest area in the sheriff’s office’s district and authorities have tried to combat crime over the past few years with more patrols, authorities said.

Regarding the Dollar General incident, the sheriff said he can’t speak for the store manager but it is well-known that it is a high-crime area.

“But there's a lot of great businesses, a lot of wonderful residents, so it's not indicative of everybody that's out here,” he said.

When asked if the manager who shot the man would face charges, he said he can’t speak for investigators or prosecutors but thinks it will be referred to the grand jury.

“If somebody was trying to obviously protect themselves, this went down as an armed robbery from everything that they viewed and how things went down, then most likely it's referred to … the grand jury.”