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Jorge Nicolas Diaz Martinez

Age : 32

Gender : Male

Race : Latino/a/e

Date : 09/13/2021

Location : 16200 block of Avenue C

City : Channelview

County : Harris

State : Texas

Agency : Harris County Sheriff's Office

Officer(s) :Not Disclosed

Cause of Death : Gunshot

Event : Killed during police response to game room robbery

OPEN RECORDS SUMMARY :

On 09/13/2021, 39-year-old Andres Salazar died from gunshot wounds during a Harris County Sheriff’s Office response to an armed robbery at a game room in the 16200 block of Avenue C in Channelview. Salazar's obituary confirms that he died in Channelview on September 13, 2021.
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Harris County deputies were dispatched shortly after 1:30 a.m. following reports of an armed robbery at the game room. Investigators said multiple armed men had entered the business. During the robbery, a security guard was assaulted and pistol-whipped and was later transported to a hospital in stable condition.
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The encounter developed into an exchange of gunfire involving at least one Harris County deputy. Authorities subsequently found one man dead near the entrance to the game room. Two other men were taken into custody, with a SWAT team deployed during the operation and at least one of the men eventually surrendering.
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Critically, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said investigators did not initially know who fired the shot or shots that killed the deceased man. Gonzalez specifically said it was unclear whether the fatal wounds occurred during the exchange of gunfire with a deputy or during an earlier possible encounter with the game room's security guard.
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That uncertainty is important for classification of this case. Contemporary reporting establishes that a Harris County deputy exchanged gunfire during the incident, but the Sheriff's Office itself did not initially establish whether police gunfire caused the fatal wound. The death therefore should not be described definitively as a deputy shooting unless later ballistics, autopsy or investigative records establish that the fatal projectile came from the deputy's firearm.
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The original reporting also did not publicly identify the deceased man. However, subsequent obituary records identify 39-year-old Andres Salazar as having died in Channelview on 09/13/2021, the same date and community as this fatal incident. Salazar was born on 02/12/1982 in Houston and left a wife, son and three daughters.
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The obituary evidence strongly points to Salazar as the deceased man in this incident, but the sources located for this update do not provide an official Harris County Sheriff's Office record explicitly connecting his name to the game room shooting. For that reason, the identification should be treated with caution pending confirmation through the Harris County medical examiner or complete HCSO investigative file.
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The most important unresolved evidentiary question is the source of the fatal gunfire. The initial Sheriff's Office account expressly left open two possibilities: Salazar was struck during the deputy's exchange of gunfire, or he had already been shot during a confrontation with the security guard. Determining that question requires the autopsy, firearms examination, recovered-projectile comparison and complete HCSO shooting investigation.
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If forensic records establish that the security guard rather than the deputy fired the fatal shot, this case should be removed from the database as a police-caused fatality. If the projectile is matched to the deputy's weapon, the Cause of Death and Event fields should be revised to reflect a fatal police shooting.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND
The Harris County deputy who exchanged gunfire during the Channelview game room incident has not been publicly identified in the records located for this update.
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Because the deputy's identity remains undisclosed, no reliable individual investigation of prior shootings, complaints, discipline, civil-rights litigation or other significant use-of-force incidents can be attached to that officer.
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The Harris County Sheriff’s Office had substantial documented use-of-force and accountability issues during this general period, particularly involving deaths in custody and allegations of excessive force. However, those institutional matters do not resolve the central issue in this particular case: whether a sheriff's deputy or a private security guard fired the shot that killed the deceased man.

SOURCE LINKS :

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/crime/article/One-dead-in-Channelview-during-armed-robbery-of-16454453.php
https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/2021/09/13/1-suspect-dead-2-in-custody-after-armed-robbery-at-game-room-in-channelview-deputies-say/
https://www.compeanfuneralhomes.com/obituaries/andres-salazar