Farmers Branch police officer who shot, killed suspect indicted on murder charge

A Farmers Branch police officer who shot and killed a suspect inside a moving truck has been indicted on a murder charge, according to the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office.

Officer Michael Dunn surrendered to police in Seagoville on Wednesday night.

Farmers Branch Police Chief David Hale said during a news conference Thursday morning that the truth comes first and “we want what is right to be done.” He wouldn’t comment on the case itself, or if body cam videos will be released, since Dallas police are leading the criminal investigation.

“It is a fair statement that this is very difficult and hard on us all,” Hale said. “But at the end of the day, when we came into this profession we all understood that the truth is paramount and that we have to get to the truth. And that’s what we want here.”

Dunn fatally shot Juan “Johnny” Moreno, 35, on June 12 in Dallas. Videos obtained by WFAA-TV, a media partner of the Star-Telegram, showed Dunn getting out of his car in a parking lot before quickly grabbing his handgun and firing into the driver’s side of a white truck swerving past him.

Dallas detectives investigated the incident because it occurred in Dallas. Officials announced on June 19 police were recommending a murder charge against the officer after the conclusion of the investigation.

Moreno was taken to Parkland Memorial Hospital after the shooting. He was pronounced dead at the hospital, according to Farmers Branch police.

The officer was treated at a local hospital for a minor injury. Police didn’t specify how Dunn was injured. The truck didn’t appear to hit him in the video, traveling around him and running into a row of cars.

The shooting

Police were following up on a report of a pickup truck that had been stolen from Irving, according to Dallas police. The truck was backed into a parking space in a shopping center on Emerald Street in Dallas, and three people were inside, Dallas police said.

When the officers walked up to the truck, police said, the driver started to pull out of his space. Dunn then fired his weapon and hit the driver, police said.

The other two occupants of the truck were uninjured, police said. They were taken into custody for questioning.

In addition to the Dallas police investigation, Farmers Branch police launched an internal investigation of the incident.

Dunn, 43, was placed on administrative leave during the investigations per department policy. He has been released from jail on bond, according to WFAA.

Juan Moreno, Johnny Moreno’s father, told WFAA that in the days after the shooting, police didn’t contact him to tell him his son had died. He found out about his son’s death through a friend.

“I’m here not really knowing if he’s dead,” he said. “Up to this day, up to this hour, I have not received a call from the police, from the sheriff, nobody.”

‘Erosion of trust’

At the press conference, Hale admitted the video of the shooting that circulated in the media was “difficult to watch,” but noted “sometimes videos do not tell the entire story.” It’s the job of police, he said, to ask hard questions, such as “what was going through your mind when this happened?”

He noted officers put themselves in dangerous situations every day and sometimes “it doesn’t turn out the way we hoped.”

Former Farmers Branch officer Ken Johnson was sentenced to 10 years in prison in January 2018 in connection with a March 2016 incident in which he chased down a teenager and shot and killed him. Hale said during the conference the incident was different, as Johnson was off-duty, and “these are two circumstances over thousands and thousands of stops.”

Speaking to the community reaction after the shooting, Hale said there has been an “erosion of trust” and “we can’t complete our mission of keeping the community safe without them.”

“We always have that fear,” he said. “But the thing that I think is most important for us to understand is that because we do place ourselves in difficult circumstances, we understand that there are repercussions for us getting out there and making mistakes — not saying that that’s what happened here.”

“We take our jobs very seriously.”

This story was originally published June 27, 2019 at 10:51 AM.