Darren Almendarez was a 51-year-old Harris County Sheriff’s deputy with 23 years on the force, assigned to the auto theft division. On the night of March 31, 2022, he and his wife were leaving a grocery store in a north Houston parking lot after buying food for his sister’s birthday party when he spotted a black Nissan Altima backed up to his truck with two men underneath attempting to steal its catalytic converter. He told his wife to run and confronted the men; the suspects opened fire, striking Almendarez multiple times. He returned fire and hit at least two suspects before being taken to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Investigators identified three suspects. Two wounded men, later named as Joshua Stewart, 23, and Fredarius Clark, 19, arrived at the same hospital and were taken into custody; a third suspect, 17-year-old Fredrick Tardy, was arrested later. All three were charged with capital murder.

In April 2026 a jury found Joshua Stewart guilty of capital murder and the court sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Trials for co-defendants Fredarius Clark and Fredrick Tardy remained pending. The state responded to the case by enacting the Deputy Darren Almendarez Act, imposing harsher penalties for catalytic converter theft, and a Houston community center was named in his honor.