A Houston Methodist Hospital doctor has died after being shot near the Texas Medical Center Friday morning, according to the Houston Police Department.
Dr. Mark Hausknecht, a cardiologist who treated former President George H.W. Bush, was shot around 8:50 a.m. in the 6600 block of Main Street while riding his bicycle to work. He died after being taken to Ben Taub Hospital.
The gunman, also on a bicycle, rode off after the shooting and is on the run, Houston police said.
Hausknecht was biking northbound on main, near Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women, when the gunman biked past him, said HPD Executive Assistant Chief Troy Finner.
The gunman turned around and fired at least two shots at Hausknnecht, who immediately went down. The shooter then kept biking north on Main, Finner said.
The gunman is described as being between the ages of 20 and 30, wearing a dark shirt and pants and riding a dark colored bicycle.
Dr. Marc Boom, president of Methodist, delivered the news to hospital employees in an email early Friday afternoon. He wrote that Hausknecht’s patients “appreciated his kind bedside manner and the extra time he took to answer their questions and fully explain their condition and treatment.”
“We will all miss seeing Mark in the hallways and seeing patients in the cath lab and (coronary care unit), where he was known as a compassionate physician with a phenomenal bedside manner,” wrote Boom. “Our employees who worked with him said patients were so proud to call him their doctor.”
Hausknecht, a leader in the Houston Cardiovascular Associates, had been in practice for almost four decades and was long affiliated with Methodist.
Hausknecht received his medical degree from Baylor College of Medicine in 1980 and did his residency and fellowship at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.
Hausknecht appeared at a 2000 news conference at Methodist with Bush after the former president was treated for an irregular heartbeat. He had been transferred from a Florida hospital.
Bush’s spokesman said he was deeply saddened by Hausknecht’s death and sent condolences to the doctor’s family, his colleagues at Methodist and his friends.
“Mark was a fantastic cardiologist and a good man,” President Bush said. “I will always be grateful for his exceptional, compassionate care. His family is in our prayers.”
It’s not known if the shooting is thought to be random or targeted.
“There are a lot of cameras so we’re hoping we can get some footage of this and bring this violent criminal into custody, where he needs to be right away,” Finner , with the HPD, said.
The news was just starting to hit employees at Houston Methodist in the early afternoon. Panetta Grice, a patient care assistant at the hospital, said that while the Texas Medical Center area appears to be safe, the shooting is an unfortunate reminder of how important it is to be mindful of your surroundings, no matter where you are.
“I haven’t digested it,” Grice said. “Who would dream you’d have to go through something like that? It’s just too hard to take.”
At a street removed from where the shooting occurred, nurses and doctors in scrubs and white coats walked, biked and hopped off the rail to get to work on Fannin, a reminder of how populated the area is with foot traffic.
Miguel Fraire, who does contract work at the medical center, said that an illusion of safety might exist in the area.
“Do I think it’s safe around here? I think for the most part,” he said. “But you’d be surprised.”
Reports of the shooting prompted a brief shelter-in-place order at the BioScience Research Collaborative at Rice University early Friday.
The shooting was reported several blocks from the university. A notification was sent to students, faculty and staff around 9:23 a.m. Friday.
The descriptions of the shooter are varied:
“A security alert sent to Medical Center employees indicated the suspect was a white or Hispanic man wearing a dark jacket with a black ball cap and riding a blue mountain bike. UT Officers and HPD are checking the area for the suspect.”
https://www.khou.com/article/news/local/hospital-identifies-doctor-shot-killed-while-riding-bike-in-medical-center/285-575876487
“The suspect was last seen riding a light-colored mountain bike traveling west on Southgate Boulevard. He is described as white or Hispanic, around 30 years old and about 5 feet 10 inches tall with a slender build.
He was wearing a gray warmup jacket and khaki shorts.”
https://www.click2houston.com/news/houston-methodist-hospital-doctor-shot-to-death-by-man-on-bicycle-in-medical-center
Blue mountain bike…..light-colored mountain bike…white or Hispanic….grey warmup jacket, khaki shorts….or dark jacket & ball cap…around 30 yrs. old, and the height is impossible to guess with any degree of accuracy because he was sitting on a bike.
This all means that they have absolutely no idea who the killer is, and they’re not going to get any ideas, either. The conflicting descriptions cover about 20% of the population.
“…..the gunman biked past him,……The gunman turned around and fired at least two shots at Hausknnecht, who immediately went down……”
The gunman came up from behind him, and on a bicycle, it would have been a lot easier to ride up behind him and shoot him in the back, but instead he passed him, and turned back to shoot him. This tells me that he needed to identify the target by face. It’s not someone the doctor was familiar with.
I have to wonder if the doctor wasn’t beginning to dabble in Holistic medicine, because we had another Holistic doctor drowned in the last few days, too. (up to 93 murders of Holistic doctors in the last 3 years. They’ll cost billions and billions of dollars in lost profits to big pharma in short time)