A Robstown man is facing a felony charge. Police say he pulled the trigger on a gun he had just sold to another man. It shot the man in the back. Corpus Christi police arrested Armando Velasquez, 23, after the shooting outside an apartment complex on the city's south side.

The shooting happened early Monday morning, August 3. It happened at the Harbour Landing Apartments in the 8000 block of South Padre Island Drive. Four men were sitting inside a car when the gun went off. Court papers show a routine hangout turned deadly fast. Velasquez skipped a basic safety check before he squeezed the trigger.

Police got the call at 2:42 a.m. Officers rushed to the apartments and found the victim sitting outside a gray GMC Terrain. The front passenger door was open. He had a gunshot wound in his lower right back.

Officers pressed on the wound to slow the bleeding. Medics got him to Bay Area Hospital soon after.

Court documents lay out what happened before the shot. Four men sat in the car together. They planned to grab food. One of the men had bought a handgun from Velasquez not long before that night. He kept the gun locked inside a red case in the back seat.

Velasquez asked to see the gun again. He unlocked the case and pulled the pistol out. He racked the slide to clear it, a common step gun owners use to check for a bullet. But he never looked at the magazine. He never checked if a round still sat in the chamber.

Velasquez told police he believed the gun was empty. He said he did not hear the "click" sound he expected from a gun with no bullets left. At the time, he was holding the pistol with the barrel pointed toward the back seat. He pulled the trigger. The gun fired. The bullet hit the victim in the back.

Everyone scrambled out of the car. One of the men called 911.

Police seized the gun as evidence at the scene. They arrested Velasquez that night. He now faces a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. That is a serious felony in Texas. It can mean 2 to 20 years in prison.

Racking a slide does not always empty a chamber. A round can still sit hidden inside even after the slide moves back and forward again. The only sure way to check a gun is empty is to look and feel inside the chamber. A sound is not enough proof. This case shows why that step matters. A private gun sale between two people can turn deadly in a split second.

The Harbour Landing Apartments sit along a busy stretch of South Padre Island Drive. That road connects Corpus Christi to Robstown and the rest of Nueces County. Robstown sits just outside Corpus Christi city limits, and many families there work and shop across both towns every day.

Private gun sales in Texas do not require a background check the way sales through a licensed dealer do. Two people can agree on a price, hand over the cash, and hand over the gun. No paperwork. No waiting period. That freedom is legal. But it also means no one checks how safely a buyer will handle the gun once it changes hands.

Velasquez was booked into the Nueces County Jail on the aggravated assault charge. Jail records list him as a Robstown resident. Corpus Christi police say the case is still under investigation. It is not yet clear how the victim is recovering.

Prosecutors have not said if more charges are coming. Any additional charges would go through the Nueces County District Attorney's Office. Court records do not list a bond amount as of this report. The name of the man who was shot has not been released.

El Tejano will update this story as more court records and hearing dates become public.