Crime in Harris County: Man arrested and charged with opening fire on his neighborhood with an AR-15

HARRIS COUNTY, Texas – A man is in jail after investigators say he opened fire with an AR-15 in his own neighborhood in northeast Harris County.

The Sunday morning shooting left bullet holes in homes in the Highlands neighborhood where investigators say Garrett Wilder, 33, shot at his own neighbors with an AR-15. After the shooting, investigators confiscated three AR-15s and a 12-gauge shotgun from Wilder.

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“I was getting ready for church and it sounded like a war zone and we couldn't figure out what it was. All the guys in the neighborhood got on their quads and tried to figure out where it came from and they figured it out. He shot out the front windows of this house. They're all robbed. (How scary is that?) It's horrific. We could have been killed,” says a woman who lives nearby.

Residents say it's literally a miracle no one was shot. They told me that a 72-year-old man was standing in his own driveway and that the man across the street was yelling at the 72-year-old to get off his property and, according to court documents, Wilder opened fire directly through the window.

The 72-year-old who was shot has lived in the neighborhood for decades, while the man who shot has been renting the house for less than a month.

“This is not good. I mean, people live in this area. There are bullet holes in the houses here,” explains a neighbor.

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“You can see the bullet holes in the mini blinds alone. There must have been 50 bullets or more. Anyone who was in his house could have been hit. It's scary,” says one man.

“The guy was shooting for over an hour. The bullets were flying past on the other side of the canal,” another woman added.

“I would say it was 7:15. I left to go to church at 8, and it was still going on. (Despite the shooting, you left to go to church?) Yes. I probably shouldn't have, but I said I was going to church to pray, and I did,” says another neighbor.

“Then this happened at one o'clock this morning. The truck caught fire. That's a different incident,” another woman explains, pointing out that a few hours after the shooting, while Wilder was in jail, someone set fire to his truck.

Neighbors report that in the short time he has lived here, there has been a lot of traffic at his house at all hours of the day and night.