HOUSTON -- A recently promoted deputy constable was fatally shot in west Houston on his way to work Tuesday, prompting a swift manhunt that ended about 60 miles away with a water rescue in the Galveston Ship Channel.
The deputy, Maher Husseini, a 3-year veteran of the Precinct 4 office, was shot and killed around 12:45 p.m. in the 8900 block of Richmond Avenue. Police found his personal vehicle with a shattered driver's window and four bullet holes on the passenger side at the intersection near Fondren Road.
He was not wearing his uniform at the time of the shooting, police said.
Authorities quickly amassed an exhaustive search for the shooter, issuing a description of a man and the damaged vehicle he was driving. Within hours, as Precinct 4 leadership waited to inform Husseini's wife of his death as she stepped off a plane at Bush Intercontinental Airport, authorities in neighboring Galveston County had tracked down a possible shooter in League City and chased him to the ship channel.
The man drove his vehicle into the water and swam out.
TranStar cameras appeared to show the driver bobbing up and down in the water, at times waving his arms.
Galveston County Sheriff Henry Trochesset said deputies in boats rescued him from the water around 5 p.m., while Houston officers then took him into custody. He was taken to the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston for a medical evaluation, officials said. He was not immediately identified.
A man who lives in the Channelview neighborhood, a waterside community with near Harborside Drive, heard the commotion of the approaching chase and stepped outside in time to see the man drive into the water and swim about 100 yards.
"The water doesn't get that deep so I figured he was able to touch where he was at," the resident, Mike Saracco, said, adding that the man appeared to struggle to stay afloat as he went west in the water. " I wasn't sure where he was going because there's no way out."
By sunset, authorities lifted the vehicle out of the water.
Details were scant on what unfolded nearly five hours earlier in the busy west Houston street.
Newly hired Houston police Chief Noe Diaz said a man stepped out of his vehicle and shot the deputy in his car. Diaz noted, when asked at a news conference, that road rage could have played a role in the shooting, but he said investigators still had work to do, such as reviewing any surveillance footage from the intersection.
Precinct 4 Constable Mark Herman said Diaz notified him of Husseini's death around 2 p.m., about when he was scheduled to report for duty.
The deputy joined the office in 2021 and had been promoted to corporal last week, Herman said. He previously ran for sheriff in Montgomery County, as a Democrat in 2020, past Houston Chronicle coverage shows, while leading private company Jaguar Security and Investigations. His sheriff's campaign focused on creating mental health programs for those charged with crimes, remodeling jails and improving pay for detention officers.
A family friend, who spoke on behalf of Husseini's brother later Tuesday, expressed shock and devastation about the shooting. He said Husseini was a Palestinian from Jerusalem who came to the U.S. about 30 years ago, lived in Spring with his wife and their two children, ages 12 and 15.
The deputy is the second Houston-area law enforcement officer to be shot to death this year. In July, Deputy Fernando Esqueda with the Harris County Sheriff's Office was killed in what authorities described as an ambush-style attack in northeast Houston. Two men were arrested and charged with capital murder in connection to Esqueda's death.
Precinct 4 deputy Kareem Atkins was killed in 2021 while working an extra job at a Houston bar. A man was charged with capital murder in his death and his case remains pending.
Herman said shootings of this nature happen too often.
"It's too much," Herman said. "There's chaos in our community, and we've got to get it fixed."
In a statement, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick compared the deputy's death to a recent shooting in Dallas that left an officer dead. In that case, authorities said the suspect sought to kill a police officer and did so by shooting one sitting in his patrol car.
The man in that case was fatally shot after a highway chase.
Yvette Orozco and Matt DeGrood contributed to this report
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