Shootings occurred from 1982 to 2000

Houston Chronicle - 12/27/2003

In 1982, his first year as a Houston police officer, Mark Prendergast and another rookie were involved in the shooting death of a man they said had tried to rob them at gunpoint. It was a harbinger: Over the next 21 years, Prendergast has shot more people than any other active HPD officer.

In a deposition in a civil suit filed by the mother of a man he killed in 2000, Prendergast said he has had to kill two people, wound four others and fire his weapon at least two more times. He has never been indicted in any of the incidents or found culpable in any internal affairs investigation related to a shooting, other officers said.

Because internal affairs investigatory reports are kept secret, the following account of shooting incidents had to be compiled from newspaper archives, the district attorney's office logs and depositions in a civil case.

·1981: While still in the Police Academy, Prendergast was investigated for accidental discharge of a firearm.

·1982: While apparently still on rookie probation, he shot a would-be robber who had approached him and another off-duty rookie officer as they left the parking lot of a Denny's Restaurant in southwest Houston at 1 a.m on July 10, 1982. The dead man, Donald Wayne Williams, 23, had shot at the two, according to a newspaper account.

·1983: While riding his bicycle alone well after midnight, Prendergast declined a passing motorist's offer to sell him pot, then shot at the car when the man turned around to chase him.

·1984: In a Sept. 19, 1984, undercover arrest at a hotel, Prendergast shot Steven W. Lewis, 32, of Nashville, in the buttocks. Prendergast refused to give a statement to homicide detectives, but told internal affairs investigators that Lewis had a gun. Lewis was later charged with attempted capital murder of a police officer. District attorney's records show another shooting involving Prendergast in 1984, but no further information was available.

·1989: District attorney's records show a shooting leading to the injury of a civilian that involved Prendergast. There was no further information.

·1992: Prendergast said he was pulling a suspect from a car after a traffic stop. There was a struggle and his gun went off.

·1999: Prendergast and his partner, working an undercover narcotics investigation, allowed three suspects to ride in their car to an undisclosed location. Later, two of the men apparently tried to rob the two officers. A shootout ensued, injuring one of the would-be robbers.

·2000: Prendergast fatally shot a man he and his partner had put in their car to take them to buy $25 to $30 worth of crack cocaine at another location. Prendergast said the man pulled a knife on his partner after becoming suspicious.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/2322879