It was a domestic violence call that first brought Dallas Police Department officers to the 4300 block of Crozier avenue on Thursday night. A witness who lived nearby said he saw a man "beating the shit" out of his girlfriend. The witness, later identified by family members as Rubin Brown, told police that he tried to intervene.
But there wasn't much else police could do by the time they arrived. According to an incident report, the couple already took off. So the officers left.
Brown went back inside. Shortly after, Brown's family says, is when they heard gunshots.
Police returned to the scene and found that the house where Brown lived with his fiancee and child was riddled with bullets. Brown got hit twice. He was pronounced dead at Baylor Hospital.
Brown's family says they were trying to stop the assault before the shooing, and they suspect that was what got him killed.
The family was together that night to celebrate birthday of Brown's 2-year-old son, when suddenly, everyone heard a loud thud. Brown's fiancee, Quenetha Bell, told reporters that the family ran outside and saw where the thud noise came from: a woman thrown onto the hood of a car by her boyfriend.
"She was asking us for help," Bell told the News. "We said, 'We have kids here, don't be fighting here. You've got to take that somewhere else.'"
Bell said that Brown asked boyfriend to stop. Brown's brother went further and punched the boyfriend, Bell told the News.
The woman suddenly became angry, according to the family's account. Demetric Young, a friend of Brown's who was at the party, told NBC that the couple warned everyone that "they'd be back."
"We thought nothing of it," Young said.
Minutes later, the witnesses told reporters, their house was sprayed with gunfire. Brown was 27. No arrests have been made yet.
