Three shot outside Texas barbershop after argument over who came first in foot race

Police say none of the wounded suffer from life-threatening injuries

An argument between two men in their forties over who won a foot race that took place almost a month ago led to a shootout outside a barbershop in Texas, resulting in three injuries.

The Houston Police Department said the incident took place outside the ‘Mean Kutz’ barbershop at Tidwell Road in Houston city around 3pm on Saturday.

“There were two males who were arguing outside the barbershop here over who ran a race faster,” Wendy Baimbridge, assistant chief of the Houston Police Department, told the media.

“So at that point, one of the victims started walking away from the argument. The suspect then shot him twice in the shoulder,” she added.

The victim, in his forties and not identified by the police, was taken to the Kingwood Hospital.

Two other bystanders were also caught in the shooting. None of the three, however, sustained any life-threatening injuries, the police said. One of the bystanders was hit in the buttocks and the other in the arm. Both were taken to the Memorial Hospital.

“I just came to get a haircut but that didn’t go as planned,” one woman who came for a haircut, but witnessed the shooting, told news channel ABC’s Houston station.

The suspect escaped soon after the shootout in a black Nissan frontier, the license plate of which is yet to be obtained by the police. The police said he was also in his forties and goes by the name Trae.

Officials said they are gathering CCTV footage and video footage from one of the witnesses’ phones.

In 2019, there were 14,400 gun-related homicides in the US. Killings that involving a gun accounted for nearly three-quarters of all homicides in the country in 2019.

As per a 2020 Gallup poll, 44 per cent of Americans reported that they or someone in their household owned a gun.