Sheriff's Office Releases Video Of Officer-Involved Shooting

HOUSTON — No one will ever know why 17-year-old Jose Luis Centento Jr., flew past a school bus while kids were trying to get off and get home for a night of trick or treating. No one will ever know why Centento fled and refused to stop for sheriff's deputies, and then raised a replica air pistol and fired at deputies.

There are indeed plenty of unanswered questions surrounding the shooting death of the Klein Oak High School student.

On Monday, the Harris County Sheriff’s Office released video footage of the Oct. 31 officer-involved shooting that left Centeno dead.

The video shows Centeno evading a deputy who’d seen him fail to stop for a school bus unloading students in the 7600 block of Spring Cypress Road on Halloween.

After a brief pursuit, Centeno ran off the road while making a U-turn and became stuck in a ditch in the 14800 block of Stuebner Airline Road.

As deputies approached his vehicle on foot. Centeno allegedly ignored the deputies’ verbal commands, raised a handgun and fired it in the deputies’ direction from the driver’s seat.

Five deputies returned fire, fatally wounding Centeno. Investigators later learned that Centeno’s weapon was a replica air gun powered by a carbon-dioxide canister.

The incident remains under investigation by the Harris County Sheriff’s Office Homicide Unit and Internal Affairs.

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Image: HCSO

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