The teenager then hopped the fence at a nearby elementary school, forcing the campus to go on lockdown.
SAN ANTONIO — Police swarm a northeast-side elementary school on the ground and in the air after a 14-year-old jumped the fence with a gun.
It happened as school started at East Terrell Hills Elementary on the northeast side.
The school was placed on a brief lockdown as officers narrowed in on the suspect.
Across the street from the school off Fairdale Drive is the Parker Apartment Homes. Police say a resident there was the first to encounter the 14-year-old when the teenager attempted to steal a man’s car.
We met the victim who shared how everything went down in broad daylight.
Around 8:15 this morning, 62-year-old Timothy Van Lindert took his dogs for a walk outside his apartment. He remembers a boy who was sitting at a picnic table nearby, but he didn’t think anything of it.
That’s until he heard a strange noise minutes later near his car.
“I turned around to see what it was, then I had the gun pointed to my head. He goes, ‘Give me your keys. I’m taking your car,'” Van Lindert explained.
He says it was the same teenager from the picnic table.
“I threw the keys down and said, ‘Oh you want the car? Here’s the keys!’ Hoping he’d turn his back and pick up the keys and that’s when I jumped him,” said Van Lindert.
In the scuffle that lasted about five minutes, Van Lindert said he tried to take away the gun.
“I can’t get the gun, I can only get his wrist. He had it like this and it’s going all around my body, my face and stuff. I’m thinking, ‘Oh God I’m gonna get shot.’ Then it goes off and I was like ok, this is a real gun,” he explained, initially thinking it may be fake.
No one was hit by the gunfire.
Van Lindert said the suspect tried pulling the trigger again.
“When we were struggling with the gun, I kept hearing click, click, click and I wondered why is he not shooting me?” he wondered.
The suspect ran away and Van Lindert immediately called 911.
As he made his way back to his car, he couldn’t believe his eyes.
“I see my car lights in reverse and I realize he’s got the keys and he’s taking my car,” he recalled, referring to the suspect.
Van Lindert said he jumped through the car window. As the suspect hit him in the head with the gun, Van Lindert put the car in park and the teenager ran off again.
“I see him going up towards the school,” he explained. “I said, ‘Oh my God this is an elementary school!'”
Still on the phone with dispatch, Van Lindert keeps the suspect within eyesight and shared his every move with police.
In a letter to East Terrell Hills families from East Terrell Hills Principal, Dr. Ross McGlothlin, it says the North East Police Department (NEPD) arrested the suspect on campus.
SAPD found the suspect’s gun off campus and helped place the teenager under arrest.
McGlothlin said the whole ordeal lasted about 30 minutes.
Van Lindert says aside from a few hits to the head, he’s ok. His car has a dent from when the suspect was trying to put it in reverse in the apartment parking lot.
When he inquired with police about why the gun didn’t fire when the teenager tried to shoot again, he was told the bullet got jammed. Van Lindert shared his story with KENS 5, in hopes it encourages the community to remain vigilant — especially the elderly, women walking alone and families with children.
The 14-year-old suspect, whose identity is not being released, was arrested for robbery and unlawful carrying of a weapon.
“The only thing I was worried about was the kids,” said Van Lindert. “That’s all I care about that he wasn’t able to get into the school — because my God, who knows what could happen.”