Dallas police shooting: Suspect with replica handgun killed by officers
DALLAS - The Dallas Police Department released body camera footage of officers shooting and killing a man with a fake gun over the weekend.
The shooting happened Saturday night on Norwalk Avenue in northwest Dallas.
911 callers in Spanish and English told dispatchers that a suspect was attempting to break into an apartment with what appeared to be a gun.
"He's beating the door with the gun itself, he cocked it," said one 911 caller.
Callers told dispatchers they believed the suspect was under the influence because he had trouble going up the stairs.
"It's early in the investigation, but obviously one of the witnesses that saw him laboring up the stairs thought that he may have been under the influence of something, alcohol or something, as the [toxicology report] comes back we'll find that out," said Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia at a news conference Tuesday. "I think his brother lived in the area, but he didn't know anybody in that apartment."
When officers arrived, they saw 26-year-old Domingo Pop Pan on the second floor balcony.
When officers arrived they told the suspect multiple times in English and Spanish to show his hands.
Pop Pan starts walking toward the top of the stairs.
Replica gun (Courtesy: Dallas Police Department)
In the body camera video you can see what looks like the butt of a gun in his waistband and the officers open fire.
While officers prepare to administer first aid, one expresses what he's feeling out loud.
"Damn it, dude," one of the officers is heard saying.
The suspect was later declared dead.
It was not until later that police would learn the gun Pop Pan had was not real.
"I don't know how you can try to Monday morning quarterback when officers truly think it's a firearm. This is not a second guessing on our part," said Garcia.
The critical incident came hours after the department laid Officer Darron Burks to rest. Burks had been executed as he sat in his patrol car nine days earlier.
"Those officers one didn't know it was a replica firearm. They thought it was a real firearm, and you heard this is not the outcome that my men and women want and you can't fake that. So, yeah it's tough on them whether they went to the services or not that morning, but that was definitely a rough day," said Garcia.
This is the sixth Dallas police officer-involved shooting this year.
No officers were injured.
Pop Pan had no criminal history.