HOUSTON – A woman is dead after being shot by a Houston police officer, ending an hours-long standoff with SWAT early Wednesday morning at a home in The Heights.
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Asst. Chief J. Bryant with the Houston Police Department gave preliminary details at the scene, saying officers first got a disturbance call Tuesday evening at a home on W 13th Street near North Durham Drive.
CenterPoint Energy confirmed an employee responding to a reported natural gas leak at the address had been verbally threatened by someone at the address, so they retreated and alerted a supervisor, then contacted CenterPoint security and local police, in line with company policy.
HPD is investigating a fatal officer involved shooting following a swat scene with a barricaded suspect in the 1600 blk of W 13th Street. No officers injured. More info at the scene.#HouNews pic.twitter.com/qY4uQ3YcB5
— Houston Police (@houstonpolice) July 9, 2025
An unidentified woman was found outside by responding police, but she then retreated into her townhome and reappeared through the second-story window with a gun in her hand, pointing it at officers.
SWAT officials were called, and negotiations went on into the Wednesday morning hours. Police said the standoff lasted more than seven hours.
At one point, Asst. Chief Bryant said the woman came out of her home briefly but then reappeared again in the window while threatening the officers.
An officer shot the woman, and when investigators were able to enter the home, they discovered she had died from the gunshot wound. Several other guns were also found inside the home, Asst. Chief Bryant noted.
“I don’t exactly know what she was saying, but she was threatening the officers,” he explained.
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Neighbors who didn’t wish to be identified told KPRC 2 News the woman appeared to have been experiencing escalating mental health issues in recent months.
“Neighbors had reached out to the police in past months, her husband had reached out to several crisis support lines and he just got the runaround from them,” one neighbor said. “(She) was very sweet on her good days, but it was obvious that she was a danger to herself on her bad days.”
At the scene, police preliminarily said they were not aware of previous calls to the house.
Neighbors stressed the woman didn’t need to die but rather needed mental health treatment.
The officer who fired his weapon has only been described as a 30-year veteran with the SWAT team. They are now on administrative leave, which is standard following these types of incidents.
No additional information has been shared, as of this writing, but HPD is continuing their investigation into finding out what led up to the incident.
