Little Caesars customer pistol whips staff, kills cop over botched order

Ronnie Palmer Little Caesars customer shoots Deputy Fernando Esqueda dead after pistol whipping staff and fleeing Houston, Texas outlet over botched order. 

An irate Little Caesars customer allegedly pistol-whipped staff members after they got his order wrong – before then going on to kill an elite cop in what Texas authorities have described as a ‘senseless’ crime.

Ronald ‘Ronnie’ Palmer Jr., 44, is alleged to have become upset after fast food workers got his order wrong at a Houston Little Caesars pizza outlet, proceeding to verbally assault a clerk and then pistol whipping staff before fleeing the scene just after 10pm, Wednesday night.

The injured clerk was later able to provide officers with a description of the suspect’s vehicle and his license plate – which Deputy Fernando Esqueda with the Harris County Sheriff’s Department was able to track down. 

Deputy ambushed shot and killed

The 28-year-old deputy, who was working overtime to keep residents safe in the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl, then notified his team members that he thought he spotted the vehicle.

‘During that phone conversation, our deputy was apparently ambushed,’ Harris County Chief Deputy Mike Lee said during a Thursday morning news conference.

He said that other detectives in the area rushed to his location, and ‘saw his undercover vehicle with multiple gun strikes in it.’

They also noticed that Esqueda was shot multiple times, and rushed him to the hospital only for the elite officer to later be pronounced dead.

One of the first deputies to arrive to Esqueda’s location was his own sister, who ‘pulled him out of the car,’ another sister told ABC 13. 

A number of houses and a vehicle across the street were also hit by gunfire the outlet reported. 

Neighbors said the people who lived in the homes were not there at the time due to some ongoing power outages. 

Little Caesars customer taken into custody

The shooting prompted a manhunt for Palmer, with a $10,000 reward placed for his arrest.

Palmer was eventually taken into custody without incident late Thursday night for the assault on the Little Caesars employee and as a person of interest in the capital murder of Esqueda – who was a five year veteran of the sheriff’s department.

A preliminary investigation revealed Esqueda didn’t fire his weapon. Esqueda was shot in the upper torso and his vehicle was riddled with bullets, Lee said.

Esqueda had worked in the sheriff’s department’s Violent Person Task Force, which Lee said hunts down child rapists, homicide suspects and ‘some of the most egregious criminals out there.’

‘He went after the worst of the worst,’ the chief deputy said at the news conference Thursday, saying there was ‘so much promise unfulfilled.’

‘Everybody just said he was such a crime fighter. He loved being a deputy, he really did,’ Gonzalez told the Houston Landing on Thursday.

Prior to joining the sheriff’s office, Esqueda was an East Aldine Pro Active Deputy, according to Terry Garza, who said she was his sergeant.

She described him in a Facebook post as ‘one of the best deputies I ever had to supervise,’ and ‘an amazing patrolman with a heart of gold.’

Garza noted Esqueda once responded to a call in which children did not have any food, and he and his partner went out to buy food and snacks so that they could eat.

‘Kids always wanted to take photos with him because he was a role model to them and he always had a big smile on his face,’ she recounted.

‘He worked so hard so the community could be safe.’

‘Rest in peace young hero!!’ 

Palmer’s last criminal conviction in Texas came in 2005 on a misdemeanor charge of unlawfully carrying a weapon, according to state records. He pleaded guilty in 1999 to a misdemeanor charge after prosecutors said he threatened and shot at an acquaintance with a sawed-off shotgun.