Grand Prairie police officers respond to wrong house, shoot homeowner early Friday
Grand Prairie police officers shot a man after responding to the wrong home on Friday morning, according to a statement.
Police initially received a call from the man’s neighbor about a disturbance in the 3000 block of Holly Hill Drive around 1:45 a.m. on Sept. 12, officials said.
The department’s computer dispatch system incorrectly auto-populated the address of the caller’s home, prompting officers to respond to the neighbor’s house, according to a police department news release.
Believing they were at the correct address, officers knocked on the neighbor’s door for five minutes from a “well-illuminated area,” police said. The resident came out of the garage in an “aggressive firing stance” and pointed a weapon at officers, according to the release.
Officers shot the man in the leg, according to the statement.
The resident walked to an ambulance without assistance and was treated at a hospital for a non-life-threatening injury, police said.
Homeowner says police shot him after he dropped gun
The resident, Thomas Simpson, told several media outlets that he thought a thief or intruder might be outside his home, so he got his handgun and opened the garage door to see who was there. Simpson said that he raised his gun before the garage door fully opened, but he dropped it once he saw that the people outside were officers. He said that he never heard them identify themselves as police.
As the garage door began to open, Simpson told KDFW-TV, “I saw two pairs of legs. So I raised my pistol, ready to fire, assuming it was criminals. I never popped the round off. As soon as the door opened, I saw their badge. I threw the gun to the ground, got shot in the leg. I dropped to the ground and Grand Prairie PD proceeded to fire about eight rounds after I was on the ground.”
Simpson told WFAA-TV that he was worried for the safety of his wife and children when the officers opened fire.
“My wife was in bed, and those shots are just going straight towards her,” he said. “So, I was terrified that she got shot in bed.”
Possible lawsuit and criminal charges
Simpson said he plans to talk to a lawyer about a possible lawsuit.
Meanwhile, police said they will refer a possible case of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon against a peace officer to the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office to consider prosecution, according to the department’s news release.
The Grand Prairie Police Department is conducting an administrative investigation of the shooting.
This story was originally published September 12, 2025 at 4:31 PM.
