At 8:10 this morning, Dallas Police spokesman Lt. C.L. Williams sent to media this brief message: "There is a police involved shooting at 3100 W. Davis in Oak Cliff." A short time later, he sent word: He was there; so too assorted TV news vans, though so far on WFAA-Channel has posted a piece on the incident. Then, at around 11 a.m., Williams sent to media the following statement:
At about 5:58 this morning a call came into the 911 center at police communications that there was a Hispanic male asking that police come to the 2900 block of W. Davis. The call came from an area business and was made at the request of that male who was outside. The call to 911 also indicated that the male had a firearm. Officers arrived shortly thereafter and found the male nearby on Davis. Because of the indication he was armed they maintained their distance while attempting to communicate with him. Over the course of the next hour the officers had the immediate area of W. Davis blocked to traffic, asked for an ambulance to go on standby, requested bullet-proof shields be brought to the scene, and asked for Tactical officers to respond as well. The patrol officers maintained contact with the male as he wandered to the 3100 block of W. Davis and were able to speak with him. He confirmed to them he had a pistol. As a Tactical team was assembling, the male, who was being constantly monitored by patrol officers, made gestures that the officers deemed threatening, and five officers fired on him. The male was struck multiple times and died.Further updates are forthcoming. But today's incident means that for the second time in two weeks, Dallas Police officers have shot and killed an unarmed man.
The criminal investigation has just begun, but shows that the male in question did in fact not have a firearm on him at the time of this shooting. The identity of the deceased is not being released at this time pending notification of family.
Two investigations are being conducted into this shooting: The Special Investigations Unit in Homicide will be in charge of the criminal investigation. A parallel investigation, conducted by Internal Affairs, will look at administrative and policy issues surrounding the incident. It is believed that there is some dash-cam video related to this call. What video there is will be used in the investigations and will not be available to the media immediately. I would anticipate it being released at some point in the future, but cannot predict when.
Update: DPD sends word that the man who was killed was Tony Menchaca. He was 32.
