Fort Worth police on Friday released body camera video of two officer-involved shootings earlier this month. Officers responded to two unrelated calls on Wednesday, Jan. 15.
In the first call, police played a 911 tape of a woman trying to talk to a dispatcher while also asking her adult son to stop hitting her.
"You can hear, just from the 911 call from the mother, the desperation in her voice, the fear, begging her own son not to hit her anymore or kill her," Fort Worth Police Chief Neil Noakes said. "He was telling her was going to kill her with a knife."
When police arrived at the house on Westgate Drive, in Northwest Fort Worth, Noakes said officers tried to talk to the man and "reason with him, let him know they were not going to hurt him."
Noakes said they did know there was a threat of homicidal violence. He said the video showed the suspect, Brandon Adame, refusing to open the front door, so several officers went to the back.
Noakes said Adame then came out the back door "charging" at officers with two knives. He said officers shot Adame and then gave first aid, but Adame died.
"Because of the ongoing deadly threat to the mother, they had to act. They did so the best they could. They were faced with a deadly threat, and they did what we train them to do," he said.
Noakes said Fort Worth police had been called to the same house for a mental health crisis about a week earlier.
"There's always more than can be done to address the mental health crisis we're seeing across the country and the world," he said. "From the standpoint of the Fort Worth Police Department, we are providing training to every officer in our academy. These officers who responded had received training in crisis intervention training."
The same day, police were called to an apartment complex on John T. White Road, near the Eastchase Parkway exit on Interstate 30 when two people called 911 to report someone near the leasing office pointing a gun at people.
Noakes said body camera video showed the suspect, Deron Morris, 42, ignore an officer who was telling him to lie on the ground. He said Morris kept walking away but stopped and reached for a gun in his waistband.
The officer fired several times, but Morris was not hurt. Noakes said Morris started walking away.
"She was forced to make a split decision at that point," Noakes said. "What we train officers to do is use deadly force only when absolutely necessary."
The video showed the officer continue following Morris, but she switched from her pistol to a stun gun.
"That's indicative of an officer who, in a very dangerous, very dynamic situation, was able to keep her head and make rational decisions in the heat of the moment," Noakes said.
He said Morris barricaded himself inside his apartment. Police set up a perimeter, and Morris surrendered about 40 minutes later and was arrested.
Noakes said officers go through scenario-based training for how to handle a situation when a suspect may ignore commands or reach for a gun.
"Officers are prepared and know how to respond in situations like this," he said. "This officer was given very clear commands, very easy commands, very reasonable commands. 'Stop, drop the gun, get on the ground.' That's not hard. It's really not, but this person made a conscious decision to disregard those commands."
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