A 53-year-old Army veteran is accused of killing two apartment leasing agents last week in Texas.
Derrick Jackson allegedly shot Rosa Linda Ybarra, 67, and Felix Antonio Jimenez-Macz, 47, at the Park at Woodlake in West Houston, prosecutor Simone Colson said Sept. 9 in court, according to the Houston Chronicle.
The shooting occurred Sept. 3 during an argument about Jackson’s leasing agreement, which “caused him to snap,” Colson said.
Colson added that she did not know the full details of what the argument was about, though Jackson reportedly told authorities he was upset when Jimenez-Macz used “Spanglish” in their conversation, or a mix of English and Spanish.
Ybarra also reportedly said, “You signed the lease, didn’t you,” according to the court hearing, which resulted in Jackson becoming irate.
The Day of the Shooting
Surveillance footage reportedly showed a man entering the leasing office at around 5:30 p.m. on the day of the shooting, then leaving 12 minutes later.
Jackson identified himself to authorities as the man in the video. When police arrested him Friday at a hotel, he allegedly had shell casings linked to the shooting on his person, authorities said.
Police also said they recovered a pistol and a pocketknife from his hotel room.
Jackson shot Ybarra in the face, killing her, and shot Jimenez-Macz twice. Jackson told authorities that when Jimenez-Macz ran away, he stabbed him to make sure he was dead, according to the Houston Chronicle.
Click 2 Houston reported that a maintenance worker and resident discovered the victims when they arrived at the office to pay rent. Houston Fire Department paramedics pronounced both victims dead at the scene, according to Fox 26.
Judge Josh Hill of the 232nd District Court ordered Jackson held on bail at $1 million. He is booked in the Harris County Jail and the investigation remains ongoing.
Jackson’s Military Background
Jackson served in the Army and in the U.S. Army Reserves from 1993 until 2017.
He served as an infantryman and aviations ops specialist and reached the rank of sergeant first class, according to federal records cited by the Houston Chronicle.
He also reportedly had one deployment to Iraq in 2008, and two deployments in Afghanistan in 2009 and 2010.
One of his attorneys, Chauntelle Wood White, said he retired from the Army and had lived in Houston since 2017.
Neither the U.S. Department of Justice nor the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) tracks the specific annual number of military veterans convicted of shooting people.
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, veterans are incarcerated at a lower overall rate than non-veterans (855 per 100,000 veterans versus 968 per 100,000 non-veterans).
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