ROCKDALE (November 24, 2009)—Erric Scott Anderson, 22, of Milano, was under guard Tuesday in Scott & White Hospital in Temple after a late-night exchange of gunfire with a police officer in Rockdale.

The officer wasn't injured.

Anderson is being charged with attempted capital murder, police said.

The incident happened at around 11:30 p.m. Monday after officers S.A. Smith and Ethan Patton stopped to check on a suspicious vehicle in the parking lot of the National Pawn store, police said.

The officers found a woman asleep in the passenger seat of the car and spotted an empty holster for a handgun on the floor of the vehicle, police said.

The woman said she was with her boyfriend, but said he must have gotten out of the car as she slept, police said.

She told the officers that there had been a pistol in the holster.

The two officers began checking area buildings and found the man behind a stone pillar, police said.

When Smith ordered him to show his hands, the man opened fire with a 9-mm Luger-style pistol, police said, firing six shots.

Smith returned fire, striking the man three times in what police said were “non-life-threatening areas.”

Police said they later found that the man had been inside Rockdale’s vacant Wal-Mart store, attempting to get into the adjacent National Pawn store.