A cop in Texas has shot and killed a combat veteran.
Damian Lamar Daniels, 31, was killed Tuesday night by a Bexar County officer after they received multiple calls of a suicidal person.
When officers arrived, they saw Daniels, who is described as a ‘mentally unstable’ combat veteran, outside of his home with a handgun. The officers tried to deescalate the situation for 30 minutes, according to reports.
“It was readily apparent that this suspect was despondent,” said Sheriff Javier Salazar. “Reports were he was suicidal and despondent over the loss of several family members, and there were indications he was seeing things or hearing voices.”
“One [deputy] tried to bond with the suspect that he, in fact, recently lost a loved one and understood what he was going through,” Salazar said.
He said that Daniels became aggressive with the officers and refused to follow orders. That’s when a deputy tried using a taser to subdue him, but Daniels allegedly reached for the officer’s weapon and then his own gun, which was in his waist belt.
That’s when an officer shot him twice in the torso. He died at the scene.
Salazar said the body camera footage was reviewed, and he is confident the officers handled the situation the right way.
“It’s heart-wrenching to see deputies going through so much to try to save a life, and in the end, this had to happen,” he said. “I’m not happy with the outcome of it. I certainly wish that Mr. Daniels had not lost his life in this incident,” Salazar said.
Daniels’ death sparked demonstrations outside the Bexar County Jail, which prompted Salazar to release photos from police body cameras “in the interest of transparency and timeliness,” he said.
“I want to release some of these still photos just to show the public what it was our deputies were confronted with,” Salazar said. “And, quite frankly, I’m still really quite in awe of the restraint, the level of restraint, shown by our deputies.”
