911 call and body cam video, released in the case of Dallas ISD teacher fatally shot in DeSoto
By: DeSoto police showed a bodycam and gave further details about the circumstances of the shooting death of a Dallas ISD teacher, who police said was a burglary suspect.
Police said they had two previous encounters with Michael Nunez this month.
On March 26, he was arrested by police officers at an area park and charged with littering.
The chief said Nunez was acting irrationally and knocking over trash cans. He spent the night at the DeSoto jail.
The next morning, he was released. Less than two hours later, he was fatally shot.
At 11:38 a.m. on Monday, a woman who was home with her 10-year-old son made a frantic 911 call to DeSoto police. She told the dispatcher there was a man inside her home located in the 300 block of South Polk Street after he walked in an unlocked door.
"Don’t open the door, I have an emergency, there is an intruder in my house and you need to come right now," the 911 caller said.
Dashcam video released by DeSoto police at a news conference Friday showed officers responding to the scene.
By the time they get to the home, the burglary suspect, later identified as Nunez, was outside. He was on the sidewalk, when video showed Nunez move toward the officer while holding a sharp object, before the officer fired his gun.
Video then showed officers administering first aid.
Still images released by police focus in on the metal object in Nunez's hand. You can hear an officer tell the other officers he had a knife.
Body camera video from another officer shows the metal object being recovered and bagged as evidence.
In the body camera video, you don't hear the officer who fired the deadly shots give verbal commands. The chief says there was a malfunction.
In the video, you can see the officer, who is a four-year veteran of the department, repeatedly tap his body cam.
The audio eventually came on after the fact.
DeSoto PD enhanced audio within the officer’s squad car, where you can hear commands.
"Put it down, put it down, put it down," the officer said.
Nunez was a Dallas ISD teacher with no criminal history.
Reached by phone Friday, Nunez's mom said he suffered some sort of mental breakdown about a week or so ago. She was trying to get him help and was in the process of securing a court order for his committal when he was shot.
She said he was talking about demons, and had gone to the park claiming God told him there was treasure he needed to find.
She said she had also called police on March 20, worried about her son and trying to get him help.
But a DeSoto spokesperson told FOX 4 "…at the time of contact he did not meet the criteria for an emergency detention, which is that Officers have to believe that Mr. Nunez was a danger to himself or others."
Nunez’s mother said she tried unsuccessfully to get the jail to delay her son’s release until she could get a court order to get him mental health treatment.
She also contacted the department’s mental health unit, known as "CARE Team," but it was too late.
"We’re always trying to get better with what we do, and in this event, the officers on the CARE Team didn’t realize he had already been released when they were working with their mother, and they were working to hold up his release, but he had already been released at 9:02 a.m., and they were working with her after that," Chief Costa said.
Nunez’s mother did get that court order to get her son help.
It was signed by a judge, officially filed at 12:12 p.m., 20 minutes after her son was shot and killed.
Chief Costa offered his condolences, but said the officer's actions in his view were justified.
"When you are addressed with, with someone with a lethal weapon, a knife, officer believed it was a knife, as you heard him say, ‘He’s got a knife,’ then the only response was lethal force," Chief Joe Costa said.
The officer has been placed on paid administrative leave as the investigation plays out.
The Grand Prairie Police Department will determine if the was any criminal wrongdoing and present its findings to the Dallas County DA’s Office.
DeSoto police is conducting its own internal affairs investigation.