Arlington police on Thursday released body-worn camera footage from earlier this month when two of its officers fatally shot an armed man in an apartment parking lot.
The officers were placed on administrative leave, per department policy, but have since returned to work, the police said during a news conference. Their names have not been released.
About 9 p.m. Oct. 7, officers responded to a suspicious person call in the 1400 block of East Lamar Boulevard, near Old Pond Road.
A caller reported a person was looking inside several cars in the parking lot and said he may be armed, police said.
Officers found the man — identified by police as 34-year-old Tony Coward — lying on his back on the hood of a vehicle.
The short clip showed officers shine a flashlight on Coward, say they’re police and tell him to put his hands up.
Coward’s seen in the footage sitting up, reaching toward his hip and pointing a gun at officers.
Both officers fired their service weapons multiple times.
It was roughly 15 second between officers announcing their presence to Coward and the shooting.
Officers rendered aid before Coward was taken to the hospital, where he later died. No one else was injured.
The department said for the first time Thursday that investigators determined, based on a spent shell casing at the scene, that Coward fired at least one shot.
Both the criminal and internal investigations are ongoing.
“The last thing anyone in this department wants to do is use deadly force,” Arlington police chief Al Jones said during the news conference, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “[Ninety-nine percent] of the time we’re able to successfully resolve situations without reaching that point.”
Coward did not live in the apartment complex but had a family member who did. It remained unclear what he was doing in the parking lot, the Star-Telegram reported. No vehicles were broken into.
Jones said Coward had previous minor run-ins with police, including theft, public intoxication and trespassing, but nothing violent, KDFW-TV (Channel 4) reported.
