Full Notification

On Thursday , May 5, 2017, at 2:20 p.m. Harris County Sheriff’s Office District 5 patrol deputies responded to a welfare check on a residence in the 20400 block of Blue Beech drive in far west Harris County.

When deputies arrived a 54-year old woman now identified as Lucille Espinosa was belligerent and threating towards deputies. She told them she would shoot them if they did not exit her property.

Espinosa was seen with a handgun in her hand as she yelled at deputies to leave.

A Critical Incident Response Team deputy and a mental health clinician were called to the scene.

After a awhile of trying to talk with Espinosa to exit the home peacefully, members of the High Risk Operations Unit (HROU) and the Hostage Negotiations Team (HNT) were deployed to the incident.

Hostage negotiators tried to establish a line of communications with the woman, but she became more belligerent and continued her threating comments of killing HCSO personnel if they tried entering her home.

HROU operators at around had 6:05 p.m. had broken a downstairs window in order to establish a visual of her movements in the home.

As deputies were backing away from the window, Espinosa came to the window and pointed her pistol at the deputies through the window.

A HROU deputy fired one time striking Espinosa.

She was immediately attended to by EMS personnel, but she was pronounced deceased.

The scene is now being investigated by the Harris County Sheriff’s Office Homicide investigators along with the Internal Affairs division.

The Harris County District Attorney’s Office Shoot Team is also investigating this incident.