Guard shoots other guard, self at Sharpstown Center

Bizarre news from Sharpstown Center: Yesterday afternoon, a security guard at the mall shot another security guard, then went to his car and shot himself in the head. Investigators are still trying to figure out exactly how it all started; fortunately, neither man died, and both are recovering at Ben Taub.

According to police, the men had been arguing just outside the mall at about 3:45 p.m. when the shooter — an unidentified man thought to be a victim of the war in Iraq — shot the other man, Robert T. Davis, in the jaw. Davis walked into the mall for help, startling shoppers: "He was holding his neck and he was bleeding and he was like screaming for help," witness Michael Soto told KTRK. "He sat there on the chair a minute or two. Then he clenched his neck one more time, and then he just fell forward, fell on the ground. After he fell on the ground we kept asking him his name and kept trying to talk to him, trying to question him. We were basically just trying to keep him alive." The shooter fled to the other end of the mall, where he sat in an SUV in the parking lot. An HPD officer approached him to ask him if he had any information on the suspect, but as he got closer to the SUV, he realized the man inside was the suspect — and about that time, the guy pulled a gun and shot himself in the head.

Davis, 57, was originally from Detroit and had been a missionary at the Shrine of the Black Madonna church for 30 years. About two years ago, his family said, he quit missionary work and took a job with Weiser Secury Services to put his son Sharrukin through HCC and the police academy. A woman who said she was the shooter's sister told the Chronicle that her brother had recently returned from military service overseas and had taken a job as a security guard; Sharrukin Davis said he had known the shooter for about a year — they used to work together at a grocery supply company — and Davis described him as a "real quiet guy."

It's not clear what kind of argument led to the shooting. KHOU reports that the shooter had been fired from his security position either late Tuesday or sometime Wednesday, but it's not clear that had anything to do with yesterday's incident.