Cedar Hill police incident leaves 1 dead
Officer-involved shooting after police chase U-Haul
A suspect is dead after being shot by a Cedar Hill police officer following a vehicle and foot pursuit that ended in Dallas. The incident began with a call about an impaired driver and involved the suspect fleeing officers before being shot in a wooded area.
CEDAR HILL, Texas - An investigation is underway following an incident in a neighborhood involving Cedar Hill police officers.
What we know:
It happened near the corner of Town Creek Drive and Glen Oaks Boulevard around 2:20 p.m..
Police incident reports indicate there was a call about an officer needing assistance with an ambulance.
Cedar Hill Police officers initiated a vehicle pursuit in the 700 block of Highway 67 involving a driver believed to be impaired. The suspect fled from officers, leading them on a pursuit that continued into the City of Dallas.
Cedar Hill police say at approximately 2:16 p.m., the suspect exited the vehicle and fled on foot into a wooded area. During the foot pursuit, one Cedar Hill officer discharged his firearm, striking the suspect.
Officers immediately provided lifesaving aid and carried the individual to a nearby roadway to meet responding EMS personnel. Despite these efforts, the suspect was pronounced deceased at the scene.
No officers were injured during the incident.
Images from SKY 4 show crime scene tape around a wrecked U-Haul truck and a covered body not far from the truck.
There were also marked and unmarked police vehicles in a nearby field, as well as additional first responder vehicles from both Cedar Hill and Dallas.
What they're saying:
A man who lives near the crime scene told FOX 4' David Sentendrey that he saw the U-Haul truck speed past his house. Minutes later, he heard an exchange of gunfire.
"Half a second, it looked like he was going to drop to the ground and give up, but I think panic set in," said witness, Michael Christopher.
Christopher says the U-Haul driver had something in his hand.
"When he exited the vehicle he had a bag," he said. "Immediately afterward, I heard 8 rapid-fire gunshots, then three more controlled gunshots."
"This is incredibly sad. There’s no reason why any of this should have happened."
Lluvia Martinez didn’t know what would happen after she began recording video of a U-Haul truck speeding away from Cedar Hill police officers on Thursday afternoon.
"Yeah, he goes under the bridge, and he's just going and going, I'm like, wow," she said.
Martinez and her husband caught multiple angles of the pursuit.
Lluvia Martinez
Lluvia Martinez
"And basically we followed him, we just saw that it ended up here, and he got off, but we didn’t continue watching. We were like, let’s go."
Dallas city councilman Maxie Johnson lives in the neighborhood.
"I wanted to make sure our community was safe," she said. "But I didn’t think it would end up like this."
Dig deeper:
In accordance with standard protocol, the Cedar Hill police officer involved has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation. The Dallas Police Department Special Investigations Unit, with oversight from the Dallas County Public Integrity Division, is leading the investigation into the officer-involved shooting.
What we don't know:
The deceased individual has not been positively identified at this time but is described as a white male.
The Source: The information in this story comes from police incident reports and the SKY 4 helicopter. Additional information is provided by the Cedar Hill Police Department.