A group of teen-aged thugs struck out in spectacular fashion last night when they apparently selected a vehicle at random to follow in hopes of ambushing it to rob the driver and/or carjack the vehicle.

Their target?

A 34-year veteran sergeant of the Houston Police Department who wasn’t impressed with them, at all:

A group of suspects targeted the wrong person to ambush after one of them was shot by a Houston police officer they were following on the way home late Thursday.

According to the Houston Police Department, it started at 11:30 p.m. when the 34-year veteran officer was heading home in his personal vehicle from a second job and noticed he was being followed as he drove down Woodhead Street in the Montrose area.

The officer turned onto Indiana Street to see if the car would keep going, but it didn’t. The suspect vehicle stopped and one male got out with a gun in hand. The suspect started toward the officer, who happened to still be in uniform.

The officer got out of his car and repeatedly identified himself as a police officer and ordered the suspect to stop. The suspect ignored the command and pointed his gun at the officer.

“At that point in time, a rear passenger got out and began running toward the sergeant as he went under street light he had arm extended and was shooting pistol directly at the sergeant,” Kese Smith, with HPD, said.

The 15-year-old suspect was shot in the buttocks.

The suspect ran back to the car where three other suspects were waiting, and the car fled the scene.

About 10 minutes later, HPD got a call about a wounded male on the ground at Cushing and Webster. HPD responded and spotted the suspect vehicle that was part of the officer-involved shooting and was able to take three suspects, ages 16, 17 and 18, into custody.

The fourth suspect was taken to a local hospital in serious condition.

I’m sure we’ll be hearing from the lawyers soon enough that the officer entrapped these poor innocent boys, who were turning their lives around, and were merely attempting to follow the officer home (with a gun) to ask him for directions to the soup kitchen where they volunteer.

Or, you know, not.