SAN ANTONIO, Texas – Nearly two weeks after an apparent robbery ended with the shooting of a Northeast Side store clerk, San Antonio police are continuing to search for a suspect.
People who live in the area near El Sendero Street and Thousand Oaks, meanwhile, are still living on edge.
“I just hope they catch him because then we can rest a little easier, you know, be a little bit more relaxed here,” said Erica Jaramillo, who works in a business next door to El Sendero Food Mart, where the shooting happened May 22.
“For them to just go in and just do something like this, randomly, it, kind of, feels like it could happen to us,” Jaramillo said.
Like other neighbors, Jaramillo said she has been taking precautions since the day of the shooting, only allowing customers inside after they’ve been screened by security.
The shooting next door was captured on surveillance cameras inside that family-owned convenience store.
The morning after the shooting, the store owner, Vikas Gohil, shared that video with KSAT 12 News in the hope that it might lead to the arrest of the suspect.
So far, though, police said they have not tracked down that man.
The video shows the man wearing a mask and hoodie enter the business, then walk toward the back of the store before finally making his way to the front counter.
As he approaches the clerk, the suspect suddenly pulls out a gun, points it and fires almost instantly, the video shows.
The clerk can be seen trying to call for help as his shirt turns bright red with blood.
Police and EMS workers soon arrive and rush him to a hospital.
Gohil said Tuesday morning that his 33-year-old employee is recovering and due to return to work soon.
People in the neighborhood also hope, any day now, they will hear news that the suspect has been arrested.
“He can’t hide forever, so they’ll eventually catch up to him,” said Geronimo Perez, who lives near the store. “If he’s dumb enough to shoot somebody and not take anything, then he isn’t smart enough to get away with it.”
Perez blames the crime on a trend he said he has noticed in the neighborhood during the past decade or so. He said crime appears to be increasing in the area.
In the meantime, others in the area are focused on this particular crime, and hoping the man in the surveillance video will soon be an inmate in jail.