WATCH: Man Shot & Killed in Ambush Outside Home [BREAKING IN HOUSTON]

OnScene TV A man was shot and killed outside of his home on Elvera Street in Houston on December 27, 2021, police say.

A Houston man was shot and killed in what police believe to have been an ambush outside of his home. The unidentified victim was either getting into or out of his vehicle when he was killed, according to police. The shooting happened about 3 a.m. on December 27, 2021.

The Houston Police Department tweeted, “Eastside officers are on a shooting at 7700 Elvera. One victim was pronounced deceased on scene.” According to police, the victim is a man in his late 40s. A woman was also inside the home near where the shooting occurred and heard the gunshots but was not injured, police said. Investigators did not give details about her relationship to the victim.

Police said anyone with information should call CrimeStoppers 713-222-TIPS. Any information provided through the tip line can be made anonymously and police said it would be “very useful.” Tips can also be made anonymously through the Houston CrimeStoppers website. There is no description of a possible suspect.

A Witness Said She Heard 6 to 8 Shots Before Finding the Victim & Calling Police

Houston Police Lieutenant Emanuel Pavel told reporters at the scene of the homicide, “At approximately 3:22 a.m., officers were called to a shooting that just occurred at 7715 Elvera Street. One officers arrived, they found one victim shot multiple times next to his vehicle. He was pronounced dead at the scene.”

Pavel added that after talking to a witness, investigators learned, “she heard about six to eight gunshots. And we also were able to recover about six to eight shell casings at the back of the truck where the victim was laying.” Video from the scene showed police tape around a white Ford SUV that was parked outside of an Elvera Street home.

“What we believe is that either the person was ambushed or someone was waiting for him or maybe the victim knew the suspect, we’re still trying to gather that information,” Pavel said. “The victim was located outside the driver’s side of his vehicle. The door was open. We’re still trying to figure out if he just got home and opened the door and someone was waiting for him or he was walking out of his house and as he was opening the door somebody came from behind and shot him.”

According to Pavel, a witness inside the home said she was in her room and “just heard six to eight gunshots and that’s when she came outside and found the victim and called police.” Pavel said the victim lived at the home where he was shot.

There Have Been More Than 467 Homicides in Houston in 2021, an Uptick From 2020

Pavel said about the Elvera Street homicide, “We do believe that it was mostly likely drug-related, due to the evidence that we have found on the scene as well.” Pavel said he didn’t want to provide additional details about what was found, “but we did find some evidence that pointed to that.”

According to the Houston Police, at least three other people were shot in two other separate incidents in Houston early in the morning of December 27, 2021. In the first incident, Midwest officers responded to a shooting scene at Fondren and Richmond, and discovered the victim had been taken to a hospital in a private vehicle. In the other incident, two people were shot in the 4600 block of Croker Ridge Road. Their conditions were not immediately known.

Click2Houston reported on December 21 that there had been 467 homicides in Houston so far in 2021. That is 66 more homicides than there had been on the same date in 2020, according to the news station. There were 400 total homicides in Houston in 2020, according to FBI crime statistics. Homicides had dipped down below 300 in 2017 and remained below that number until 2020. There has been an overall decline in homicides in Houston since 1990, when 608 people were killed, according to the FBI Crime Data Explorer.