SUSPECT IN DRUG BUST THAT LEFT 2 MEN DEAD HELD FOR QUESTIONING

Pasadena police Friday were questioning a Houston man in connection with a
drug bust this week that ended with the fatal shooting of two men and the
wounding of another.

Randy Flores, 18, was arrested early Friday at his home at 10810 Telephone
Road by members of the Gulf Coast Violent Offenders Task Force. He was
being held in lieu of $100,000 bail, charged with illegal expenditure
involving narcotics.

A tipster led police to Flores, said Pasadena police spokesman Sgt. J.M.
Baird. Officers were still searching for a fifth man who they say fled the
scene of Wednesday's shooting in a red Lincoln Town Car with Flores.

The shooting at 204 S. Richey near Texas 225 occurred as police tried to
arrest five men during a purported cocaine sale. Six Pasadena officers
fired 46 shots during the incident, and two officers suffered minor
injuries when they were struck by vehicles as the men attempted to flee,
Baird said.

According to police, undercover officers had arranged to meet the group and
sell five kilos of cocaine. After establishing that the buyers had brought
$56,000 in cash and wanted to go through with the transaction, an officer
signalled to others nearby, police said.

Nine officers then circled the three vehicles in which the men had arrived,
police said, but the men refused to surrender.

Killed by the gunfire were Keithen Briscoe, 24, of the 2800 block of
Dragonwick in Houston; and Empra TaDar Moore, 23, of the 17000 block of
Clay Road in Houston.

Robert Moore, 19, a passenger in his brother Empra's car, was wounded in
the shoulder but was released after treatment at Ben Taub Hospital. He has
not been charged.

Police said Briscoe had carried the cash and a .32-caliber pistol, but
officers had not determined whether he fired the gun. When he saw the
approaching officers, Briscoe backed his Ford Escort into one officer, who
was thrown over the car and landed in front of it, police said.

Briscoe then drove forward, running over him and drawing gunfire,
authorities said.

The officer, whose name was withheld, was treated for cuts and abrasions
and released from an area hospital.

Briscoe, a criminal justice major at Prairie View A&M University, was shot
four times. The Harris County Medical Examiner's Office reported that
wounds to his shoulder and chest were fatal.

Empra Moore, a December graduate in criminal justice from Prairie View A&M
who was about to begin a graduate program, was driving a Chevrolet Tahoe
that backed into another officer in an escape attempt, police said.

That officer, who also was not named, suffered bruises and abrasions to one
arm but was not hospitalized. Moore was shot seven times and died of a
wound to his left armpit, an autopsy showed.

Police said Flores and an unidentified man managed to escape during the
gunfire.

The six officers who fired their guns were placed on a mandatory three-day
administrative leave and will undergo counseling, Baird said. They also
must requalify with their guns at the police range, he said.

Records show that Briscoe had been arrested three times in recent years,
including a case that was still pending from his June 1997 arrest by Fort
Bend County sheriff's deputies on a marijuana possession charge.

He also was arrested in November 1996 for marijuana possession and received
two years' probation the following April. At the same time, Briscoe
received deferred adjudication, a form of probation, for a January 1997
arrest on a weapons charge, according to Waller County records.

Records also show that Empra Moore was arrested by Prairie View A&M police
in October 1996 for possessing a pistol on campus. He received two years'
probation in October 1997.

His brother, Robert, who was wounded in Wednesday's shooting, received
three years' probation last September for assaulting a Waller police officer.