A late-night confrontation inside an Austin, Texas, convenience store ended with a 42-year-old customer shot to death in his own car — and, more than two years later, with the gas station employee who fired the shots convicted of murder and sentenced to five years in prison.
The case, detailed in police body camera footage and court filings reviewed in an episode of “Inside the Crime” presented by Law&Crime, hinged on a question that investigators faced the moment they arrived: Was this self-defense, or something else?
A Shooting on East MLK Jr. Boulevard
It was just before 11:15 p.m. on January 21, 2023, when Austin Police Department officers responded to a Shell gas station on East Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. What they found was a man in the driver’s seat of his car, suffering from multiple gunshot wounds.
Officers on scene worked quickly to render aid, calling for a medical bag, a chest seal and tourniquets. “He was shot like five times by this gentleman,” one officer said as they worked. “I have two tourniquets on both arms. He’s unconscious now. Uh, he’s still breathing, but he’s in and out.”
The efforts were not enough. The victim, identified as 42-year-old Maris Lavar Demps, died at the scene.
The response was unusual in one respect: no one had called 911. An officer had already been on scene when the shooting occurred. “So, this wasn’t even a call,” an officer told a colleague. “This was an officer on scene and it had just happened.”
Bystanders in the parking lot described their confusion in the moments afterward. “No, I just pulled in and there’s a girl. Hey, that guy’s been shot. And I’m like, whoa, who has the gun?” one man told officers. “That’s why I said, ‘Is there a call in 911?’ She’s like, no.”
The Employee’s Account
The alleged shooter was still at the gas station when police arrived. Officers identified him as 25-year-old Yasine Naz, an employee at the store.
In lengthy remarks captured on body camera, Naz told officers he had been in the restroom when he first heard a disturbance. He said he came out to find Demps yelling at the person behind the register.
“I was like, ‘Be respectful, man. Every time you come in here, I don’t ever do you wrong, you know,'” Naz told an officer. “I told him, ‘Bro, be respectful. You know, you don’t got to be yelling and screaming and hollering.'”
Naz said Demps then charged at him repeatedly. “He did this three times all the way to where I got backed up to the coffee,” he said. He told officers that co-workers stepped in, that Demps pushed one of them to the ground, and that he joined in physically because he felt he had to intervene.
Naz then described Demps pulling out what he called a black folding knife roughly five inches long. “He tried to stab all three of us,” Naz said. Asked by an officer whether Demps had touched anyone, Naz replied: “Stab, brother. Man, I’m glad none of us got touched. We ran out the store.”
Naz said that when Demps moved toward a storage area, he ran back inside and retrieved a handgun kept by a printer under the counter. He described giving Demps repeated warnings. “I gave him three chances. I went to three different directions and he charged me every time. I told him, dude, if you keep charging me, I’m going to have to shoot.”
He also told officers he feared Demps had another weapon. “If he’s got a gun, holy, now our life is gone.”
What the Surveillance Video Showed
Investigators reviewed the store’s surveillance footage, and according to court documents, it told a different story than the one Naz gave at the scene.
The filing states the footage shows Demps entering the store and speaking with Naz and another employee before a verbal argument turned physical. During that altercation, both Naz and the second employee, identified in the documents as Dakota, delivered multiple strikes to Demps, causing him to bleed excessively.
After the parties separated, the filing says, Naz retrieved a stun gun, returned to Demps and applied it to his neck and head area while Dakota delivered multiple kicks to his head.
Demps is seen holding a knife after the second altercation, according to the documents, but put it back in his pocket after separating from the two employees. Naz then retrieved a handgun from behind the counter and pointed it at Demps. Demps, still bleeding from the initial fight, is described as visibly agitated and throwing items in the store before walking out to his vehicle in the parking lot.
Officers say Demps was trying to leave when Naz and the other employee approached his car. The filing says Naz fired multiple rounds into the vehicle through the rolled-up driver’s-side window, striking Demps multiple times and causing injuries incompatible with life.
At the scene, officers took steps to preserve evidence, instructing that Naz not be allowed to wash his hands and moving him out of direct view of the deceased man’s vehicle as onlookers gathered.
Charges, Trial and Sentence
The other Shell employee mentioned in court documents reportedly did not face criminal charges. Naz was arrested and charged with murder, transported to the Travis County Jail and held on a $1 million bond.
Jury selection in his murder trial began September 15, 2025. By September 19, a Travis County jury found him guilty of murder.
According to the district attorney’s office, during the punishment phase of the trial the jury found sufficient evidence of sudden passion — a finding under Texas law that can reduce the sentencing range for a murder conviction. On September 23, 2025, Naz was sentenced to five years in prison.
Online records with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice show Naz is eligible for parole in 2028. If he serves the full sentence, he would be released in 2030.
