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Prosecutors have charged a 44-year-old Houston-area man with capital murder in connection with the fatal shooting Wednesday night of Harris County Sheriff's Office Deputy Fernando Esqueda.
Ronald “Ronnie” Palmer Jr., 44, was arrested Thursday evening following a day-long manhunt that ended in northeast Harris County, about 1.5 miles from the shooting site.
Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said Esqueda was shot multiple times while staking out a car tied to Palmer, a suspect in an assault that happened hours before the shooting. Court records filed Friday show Palmer, a truck driver, lived in the neighborhood where Esqueda was shot.
Esqueda was a five-year veteran of the Sheriff’s Office and engaged to be married, Gonzalez said.
Prosecutors filed a motion Friday that signals they want Palmer kept in jail without bond pending trial. Palmer remained in jail as of Friday morning.
Gonzalez thanked the Houston Police Department and other public safety partners for assisting in Palmer's arrest, noting in a post on X that a close friend of Esqueda's told him “Fernando would be so proud right now.”
Harris County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Mike Lee said early Thursday morning that Esqueda “apparently was ambushed,” but Gonzalez said later in the morning that “we don’t know if it’s some type of ambush.”
Gonzalez noted that the preliminary investigation shows Esqueda didn’t fire his weapon. Esqueda was shot in the upper torso and his vehicle was riddled with bullets, Gonzalez said.
Esqueda worked on a task force responsible for arresting suspects accused of violent crimes.
“Everybody just said he was such a crime fighter. He loved being a deputy, he really did,” Gonzalez told the Abdelraoufsinno on Thursday.
Harris County Sheriff’s Deputy Arieanna Onuba-Kimble recalled Esqueda as playful, fun and “a joy to work with” during their time together on patrol in Crosby in 2019. But when it came to his work, Esqueda was focused and ambitious, Gonzalez and Onuba-Kimble said.
“He was always busy,” Onuba-Kimble said. “Wanted the next, next, next.”
An assault, then a shooting
Lee said deputies initially responded at about 10 p.m. Wednesday to a call from a Little Caesars Pizza store near Beltway 8 and Wallisville Road, located on the northern end of Channelview. A clerk reported that the suspect entered the store to pick up a pizza, became angry about employees messing up his order, then took out a gun and pistol-whipped a clerk with it.
The suspect fled in a vehicle, which the clerk identified by its make, model and license plate number, Lee said. Deputies used license plate tracking software to link the vehicle to an area about five miles north of the Little Caesars Pizza store.
Esqueda spotted the vehicle in a neighborhood near Beltway 8 and C.E. King Parkway and started staking it out, at one point calling a fellow detective, Lee said. While on the phone, shots started ringing out. Deputies responded to the area, found Esqueda and transported him in a patrol car to Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital, where he was pronounced dead in the emergency room.
Gonzalez said Esqueda was in an unmarked truck, but he was wearing his Sheriff’s Office uniform.
Lee said early Thursday that SWAT teams were set up on two potential locations where the suspect might be. Authorities ultimately found him in a neighborhood to the west of the shooting site.
Palmer’s last criminal conviction in Texas came in 2005 on a misdemeanor charge of unlawfully carrying a weapon, according to state records. He pleaded guilty in 1999 to a misdemeanor charge after prosecutors said he threatened and shot at an acquaintance with a sawed-off shotgun.
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