Affidavit: Man shoots man attacking him with 2x4, charged with unlawful possession of firearm by felon

AUSTIN, Texas - An Austin man accused of shooting another man who was attacking him with a 2X4, has been charged.

Gabriel Herrera, 44, has been charged with third-degree felony unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon.

According to an arrest affidavit, Austin police officers responded to an emergency call for service at a mechanic's building on Clermont Avenue the morning of Feb. 18. Officers learned a man had been shot twice in the leg by someone identified as Herrera, who wanted to speak with a detective and was transported to APD headquarters for an interview.

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In the interview, Herrera told detectives the victim was a bad employee and that his wife also worked for the mechanic but was a good employee and hard worker. He said the couple had been staying in a trailer on the property and that the husband had been defecating and urinating on his floor and in his area. 

Herrera said the man had attacked him twice before, once with a door handle and once with a hard plastic cooler. He said that he, the wife and their boss had sat down two days prior to the shooting and that their boss told the wife she and her husband needed to be out of the trailer in two days. The husband was not at the meeting, says the affidavit.

Herrera said that he was told by his boss that if the couple hadn't moved out to cut the power to the trailer after the wife left. Herrera said when he went to his tool room, he found fecal matter on the floor and believed the husband did it as he had been heckling Herrera, but he didn't have proof other than recent behavior.

He said he did turn off the power to the trailer and that the husband came out and started arguing with him. He argued back about the fecal matter he found and said the husband then went on a rant. He said during the argument, the man picked up a 2X4 that may have been on the ground, but he said he hadn't noticed it until the man had it in his hands. Herrera told detectives the man swung it at him and that he had put up his arm to block it, showing them injuries from the wood.

Herrera said as he was twisting back, he pulled out a revolver that he'd gotten specifically to protect himself from the man because of the two prior unprovoked attacks. He said he fired two low shots at the man, but didn't think he hit him because the man looked at him and laughed. He said he then fired two more shots, aiming low. He said the man was not holding the 2x4 when he fired the second shots.

Detectives confirmed with Herrera that he had a prior felony conviction for theft in 2015 and asked if he knew he wasn't allowed to possess a gun, at which time he said he had gotten it for protection.