Former EMT sent to prison for robbery and firearms charges

HOUSTON - A 30-year-old Houston resident has been sent to prison for a series of armed robberies he committed while brandishing a firearm in September 2020, announced U.S. Attorney Alamdar S. Hamdani.

Xavier McCoy-Taylor pleaded guilty to interference with commerce by robbery and brandishing a firearm during a crime of violence Aug. 29, 2022.   

U.S. District Judge George C. Hanks has now handed McCoy-Taylor a 34-month-term of imprisonment for the robbery as well as another 84 months for each of the firearms charges which must be served consecutively to the other sentence imposed. The total 198-month sentence will be immediately followed by five years of supervised release. At the hearing, the court heard additional evidence that described McCoy-Taylor’s criminal history as well as his former employment as a firefighter. In imposing the sentence, the court noted how McCoy-Taylor was a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” in that he had a loving family

and went to work every day at a job where he was entrusted to help the most vulnerable people in the community. Judge Hanks commented that at that same time, he held innocent victims at gunpoint for no apparent reason other than enjoying it. He added that McCoy-Taylor should not be able to walk the streets of Houston for a very long time.

"This defendant was an EMT (emergency medical technician) and had every opportunity to be a productive member of society,” said Hamdani. “Instead of serving the public, he decided to endanger it, pointing a gun at pregnant store clerk and then pointing it at a Texas State Trooper. As a result, he will spend the next years taking care of his jail cell instead of his patients.”

McCoy-Taylor had previously been employed as an EMT at the Westlake Fire Department. At the time of his arrest, he was employed as a patient care assistant at Memorial Herman Hospital. 

On Sept. 25, 2020, McCoy-Taylor robbed a CVS on Beechnut Street in Houston. During the robbery, he held the pregnant clerk at gunpoint. As McCoy-Taylor exited the building with his gun still in hand, a Texas state trooper in the parking lot approached and yelled at him to stop. McCoy-Taylor then pointed his firearm at him.  

The trooper pulled the trigger on his firearm in self-defense, but the gun malfunctioned. McCoy-Taylor then ran down the street, but fell to the ground and dropped his gun. 

McCoy-Taylor had also brandished a firearm while robbing the gas station attendant at the Murphy USA gas station in Katy earlier that month.

He has been and will remain in custody pending transfer to a U.S. Bureau of Prisons facility to be determined in the near future.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; Texas Department of Public Safety; Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office and police departments in Katy and Houston conducted the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Britni Cooper prosecuted the case.