After several rounds of pepper balls didn’t stop Jake Miller from dropping two knives from his hands in an East Dallas neighborhood, Dallas police say Officer Anthony Pargas then deployed his taser. Seconds later, the situation escalated.
“You can see from the video he was going to harm our officers, and officers did everything they needed to do at that time, and they acted accordingly,” Chief Daniel Comeaux said.
On Monday, July 14, Dallas Police said Miller, who lived in the East Dallas neighborhood, was experiencing a mental episode.
According to Comeaux, officers got a call at 9:55 a.m. on Wednesday, July 9, of a man in the street with a knife. When officers arrived, the man was kicking at a door and holding the knife to his neck.
Officers gave verbal commands to the man, but the man did not drop the knife, according to police. Officers then used “less-than-lethal force” to try to stop the man, the police chief said.
Officers began to give louder verbal commands when the man advanced towards police, and the officer discharged his duty pistol, hitting the man. Officers rendered first aid, including CPR, but the man died after being transported to a nearby hospital.
The officer-involved shooting was the second in a week where a suspect charged a DPD officer and refused to put down their weapon.
“We want every single officer to go home every night, but we train all these officers, these officers go through really long, extensive training to make the right decisions,” Comeaux said.
“I was glad to see our chief of police, new chief of police, interact in our community because when there’s a victim’s life taken away, I believe that his job is to let the community know that there is a big concern,” Durant said.
The officer-involved shooting is the fourth so far this year for Dallas police.
Durant, who lives in the East Dallas neighborhood, says seeing Comeaux on her block the day of the shooting and naming the suspect days later helps her have a better understanding of who is in her neighborhood.
“It’s important for us to know as a public that way we can narrow down, or come up with plans, to what’s the mixture of people entering our neighborhoods,” Durant said.
Officer Pargas has been with the Dallas Police Department since January. As protocol, the shooting is now under investigation by the Dallas County District Attorney.
Great Job Shannon Miller & the Team @ NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth Source link for sharing this story.
