HPD officer shot in the face — sorta

It's hard to pass up a news item headlined "Houston police officer survives being shot in the face," isn't it? We guess that's what KTRK was hoping when it put that headline on a piece about a Houston police officer who was shot while questioning some guys who were jaywalking Wednesday night — but it turns out the situation wasn't quite as dramatic as you might think:

It happened at Renwick near Bellaire. We understand two officers confronted three suspects who were allegedly jaywalking near the Renwick Apartments around 7:30 pm Wednesday.

When the officers were patting down one of the men, they found a weapon. While trying to get the weapon away from the suspect, a second man pulled out a gun and fired at the officers. One of the bullets grazed an officer in the cheek.

Not that it's a bad thing, of course — we're very happy the officer wasn't really shot in the face — but we figured the incident would have been a lot more dramatic.

What actually happened was this, according to KHOU: A police team was working on a case near Renwick and Bellaire when they noticed three men jaywalking and "looking suspicious." They stopped the men and discovered that one was carrying a gun; while that suspect was being put into a police car, a second suspect got into a struggle with one of the officers. During the struggle, the cop's gun went off and a bullet grazed his cheek — hence, the "shot in the face" angle. The officer who was putting the guy in the car heard the shot, turned and fired at least one shot, hitting the second suspect in the chest.

The wounded suspect was taken to Ben Taub, where he's in stable condition; the grazed officer was checked out at Memorial Hermann Southwest, and we imagine he'll be fine. The other two suspects were taken into custody, and no charges are expected to be filed against them.