Around 10:30 this morning, Dallas police received a call about a "cutter" on Espanola Drive near Dallas Love Field. Soon after, 8-year-veteran Kevin Gladden arrived at a red-brick house with a basketball hoop in the front driveway, according to police.
Eighteen-year-old Jose Manuel Gonzalez had a knife in each hand. An oblong pool of blood was on the front porch.
Gonzalez had already cut his mom, dad and grandma, who had hightailed it for the next door neighbor's house, police said. Neighbor Cynthia Valdez, whom the police would later interview, had heard the police sirens and went outside to investigate. A few houses down and across the street, she later told Unfair Park she saw an officer with his gun drawn and the younger brother coming toward him, his hands behind his back. She couldn't see any weapons.
Gladden shouted at Gonzalez to drop the knives he was carrying, according to police. Instead, the young man continued to approach the officer, making him retreat closer and closer to Valdez's house. When the officer was almost in her front yard, she hurried inside. Then she heard the gunshot.
"The suspect refused to drop the knives," Deputy Chief Gil Garza told reporters later at the scene, "and the officer shot the suspect."
Stepping outside again, Valdez said she saw Gonzalez on the ground, his arms outstretched. Another officer kicked away two knives from the young man's hands, Valdez said. Then, Gonzalez tried to get up, making a guttural sound, Valdez said. The officer tased him.
The officer "tased the suspect because he remained combative," Garza said.
Gonzalez's mom, dad and grandma were taken to local hospitals, Garza said. Police expect them to be OK. Police said Gonzalez was in critical condition at the scene and was pronounced dead after an ambulance took him to a hospital. It was the second time in less than 24 hours that an officer has shot a suspect.
The family has a daughter, about 5 or 6 years old, who was in school at the time of the incident, Valdez said. The suspect's older brother had gone to pick her up, she added. According to Valdez, an officer told her that Gonzalez's mother said he suffered a head injury about a year ago that might have caused him to attack his family.
The neighborhood the Valdezes live in is a close-knit community, Valdez said, even if that house had been trouble of late. "We look after each other," she said.
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