Grand Prairie officers, fearing ‘for their lives,’ fatally shoot armed man, police say
Two Grand Prairie officers fatally shot a man who was armed with a knife in the parking lot of an extended-stay hotel early Wednesday morning, police said.
The man was identified as Dewayne Bowman, 30, of Grand Prairie, according to the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office. He was living at the hotel, police said.
Police responded to the Budget Suites extended-stay hotel at 1050 N. Highway 360 after multiple callers reported a man had assaulted an individual and was chasing an on-site security officer through the parking lot with a knife, according to a police news release.
Two officers who responded to the scene found Bowman in the parking lot in the back of the complex, according to Mark Beseda, a police spokesman. They tried to de-escalate the situation, he said, but Bowman refused to listen and advanced toward officers.
The officers discharged their weapons. It’s unclear how many shots were fired. Bowman died of multiple gunshot wounds to his head and chest, according to the medical examiner’s office.
“They began to fear for their lives and that’s when they shot the individual,” Beseda told the Star-Telegram on Wednesday. “He passed away at the scene.”
The person who was assaulted didn’t need to be treated for injuries, and there were no other reports of injuries.
Hotel management declined to comment Wednesday.
Beseda said Wednesday he hadn’t seen the officer’s body-camera videos and couldn’t comment on the moments before shots were fired, such as the manner in which Bowman was moving toward officers. He also couldn’t say if officers followed department policy.
He couldn’t comment on the suspect’s motivation, criminal history or if this sort of behavior was typical of him.
The Grand Prairie Police Department internal affairs division and the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office are leading separate investigations into the shooting, Beseda said. Grand Prairie is in multiple counties. but the shooting occurred in Tarrant.
“We’re going to try to determine what happened, what led up to the events, what happened hours before,” he said. “Was there something going on that occurred that caused him to do this? We just don’t know at this point.”
Internal affairs officers will continue to speak with witnesses and try to get in contact with Bowman’s family or friends to understand what happened, Beseda said.
Officers collected evidence at the scene early Wednesday morning.
The two officers who fired their weapons have been placed on leave as the investigations unfold, per department policy.
Police didn’t plan to release body-cam videos to the public Wednesday, Beseda said.
“Typically, that’s not released,” he said. “That’s a call for preserving evidence for the DA’s office and prosecution and all that. I just don’t know — it’s too early to know the answer to that.”
This story was originally published February 12, 2020 at 6:11 AM.
