Man fatally shot by Dallas police after charging officers with box cutter

Dallas police fatally shoot armed suspect

Dallas police officers shot and killed a suspect on Sunday night on Lemmon Avenue in Oak Lawn. He was reportedly armed with a box cutter and lunged at officers.

DALLAS - A man was fatally shot by Dallas police Sunday night after he allegedly charged at officers with a box cutter during a mental health call in the Oak Lawn area.

What we know:

Officers responded to an apartment complex in the 5100 block of Lemmon Avenue just after 7:30 p.m. following reports of a man threatening to harm himself with a weapon.

Upon arrival, officers knocked on the apartment door. The man opened it while holding a box cutter but immediately slammed it in the officers' faces, according to the Dallas Police Department. 

Police said they overheard the man shouting, "Put the taser away. I don’t want to f***ing stab myself. I want to get shot," and yelling at another person inside the unit, saying, "This is your fault."

1 dead in officer-involved shooting in Dallas

One person is dead after a shooting involving Dallas police Sunday evening.

The suspect then reopened the door and "aggressively charged at officers" while reaching for an officer's service weapon. Police fired at the man, striking him in the upper torso. He was transported to a nearby hospital, where he later died.

No officers were injured in the confrontation. The two officers involved have been placed on administrative leave, which is standard procedure during an investigation.

Dig deeper:

Alex Del Carmen is a criminologist not involved in the case. He talked to FOX 4 about a string of recent officer-involved shootings in Dallas. There have been three so far in 2026.

"It's extremely difficult for police officers to be able to predict, you know, what the outcome of one of these calls are going to be," Del Carmen said. "Sometimes it seems like they come in clusters. But, you know, unfortunately police officers find themselves in these types of situations where they have to use lethal force. Seems to me that Dallas has been on that trajectory for the past three months, not necessarily to the fault of Dallas, right? It just happens to be that way. Now, having said that, I will say that police officers and something that the public also should be aware of is that the officer that responds to these calls and the officer who ends up using lethal force, his or her life changes right forever in the sense that this is something they take with them whether it's justified or not, whether it is legal or not."

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What we don't know:

The identity of the suspect has not yet been released because police are still working to notify his next of kin.

Police also did not clarify the number of people inside the apartment at the time or their relationship to the man. 

The department is expected to release 911 calls and body camera video related to the case within 72 hours of the incident.