Man Shot, Killed in Texas Police Standoff

SAN ANTONIO --

A standoff that lasted more than three hours ended Sunday night when San Antonio Police Department SWAT team members shot and killed a man who they say emerged from a Northwest Side apartment holding a gun.

According to police, Henry Cruz, 29 refused to come out of a second floor unit at the Parque de Oro Apartments in the 100 block of Babcock Road, where officers tried to serve an arrest warrant on him for a domestic violence parole violation.

About 3½ hours later, police said that Cruz climbed out a window and advanced toward officers while holding a gun to his head. When Cruz refused to put the gun down, the officers opened fire. Cruz died at the scene.

"They kept telling him when he walked outside, 'Put the weapon down! Put the weapon down!'" said Amanda Martinez, who witnessed the incident. "He wouldn't put it down, so they shot him."

Martinez, though, wondered if police should have not shot Cruz.

"He didn't threaten nobody but himself. He had the gun to his head," she said.

According to police, the apartment belongs to Cruz's girlfriend, who was not inside the unit during the standoff. She offered to give police keys to go inside the apartment.

The shooting is the 18th officer-involved shooting of the year. There were 11 officer-involved shootings in 2008.

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