Image via ABC13

Just before midnight on Saturday, a driver parked his car on the street near an apartment complex in Houston. Local station ABC13 reports that police said two men then approached the vehicle to steal it, instead shooting the man in front of his wife and daughter because the car had a manual transmission.




That driver was Pedro Aguilar, 47, who ABC13 reports died on the scene. ABC13 reports that the current assessment of the situation by police is that those men, who police say appeared to be in their late teens or early 20s, shot Aguilar out of anger about not being able to drive the car due to it being a manual. You can see just how frantic and busy the crime scene was in the ABC13 video report here.

According to the report, the men who allegedly attempted to steal the car had a gun pointed at Aguilar upon approaching him. They then fled the scene on foot due to being unable to drive the car, according to ABC13. As of the ABC13 story at around 10 a.m. ET on March 12, the two men had not been found by police.


We like to joke about how owning a manual transmission can prevent theft by a large segment of the world’s carjackers, but this is a somber reminder that none of us are immune to the hatred and complete disregard of others.