By Arelis Hernandez
Associated Press
BAYTOWN, Texas — A gunman shot and killed a southeast Texas sheriff’s deputy who was responding to a report that a woman opened fire on a utility worker sent to shut off water service to a mobile home, authorities said.
The gunman, Gilbert Ortez Jr., 37, was found shot to death Monday when the daylong standoff at the mobile home ended around 7 p.m. Officials were unsure whether he shot himself or had been shot by a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper, Chambers County District Attorney Cheryl Lieck told the Houston Chronicle.
The sheriff’s department said Tuesday it would release more information on the incident later in the day.
Deputies went to the Tower Terrace mobile home park around 9:30 a.m. Monday after the utility worker fled when a woman came out and started shooting. Pamela Leggett, 29 was arrested and charged with aggravated assault and resisting arrest.
Ortez also was at the mobile home about 30 miles from Houston at the time and fatally shot Deputy Shane Detwiler in the head when the lawman entered the home, authorities said.
Detwiler, 31, of Baytown, had been with the Chambers County Sheriff’s Department for just two months after six years with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Baytown police spokeswoman Patti Jett said. She said the married father of three young children also was a highly decorated Iraq war veteran.
Authorities said negotiators tried for hours to contact with Ortez without success.
Neighbor Randy Young told the Chronicle he awoke to gunfire at the mobile home park Monday morning. He and more than a dozen neighbors hustled out after authorities arrived. Young said Ortez collected weapons and had shown him explosives.
“It’s a nice place, maybe a fist fight every now and then,” neighbor Tracy Daw said of Tower Terrace. “But nothing like this.”