PASADENA, Texas — Pasadena police released dashcam video showing a deadly officer-involved shooting that happened Tuesday morning.
What happened
Pasadena Police Chief Josh Bruegger said officers were responding to a call at about 10:15 a.m. about a man with a handgun at Spencer Highway and Strawberry Road.
According to Bruegger, the armed man was seen walking in the middle of the street. He then turned around and started walking toward a patrol vehicle while allegedly waving a gun in his hand and pointing it at officers. That's when officers started shooting.
One officer reportedly fired from inside the patrol vehicle while another fired after getting out of his patrol car.
The suspect was pronounced dead at the scene. He hasn't been identified. It's unknown if the suspect ever fired at the officers.
"I know there's a lot of videos that are floating out on social media of the shooting already," Bruegger said. "Our plan is to try to get our videos, the car camera and the body camera videos, out by the end of the day."
Under department policy, the two officers involved will be on administrative leave for the next five days. They'll then have to go through a process to get back on duty. Pasadena Police's Internal Affairs Division and the Harris County District Attorney's Office are investigating what led up to the shooting.
Here's the update that was provided at the scene:
The dashcam video
In the dashcam video, you can see the man running down the middle of the street with a gun.
The officers give him several commands to drop his gun, but the man continues running with the weapon in his hand.
At one point, the man turns and points the gun at the officers who were in pursuit.
At that point in time, the officer whose dashcam video was released stopped his car and got out.
The officer opened fire, striking the suspect. The video shows the man fall to the ground, but KHOU 11 News has chosen not to show that part of the video. You can watch the edited video here or below:
Eyewitness account
Ariana DeLeon works in the area and recorded a video of the shooting as she saw it happen.
She said she heard the officers giving the man commands through their PA systems but she said the man did not comply.
Her video shows the man running down the middle of traffic on Shaver with the gun in his hand. The video also shows the man pointing his gun at the officers in pursuit.
In the video, you can hear faint gunshots and then stronger gunshots as the man disappears from the frame.
DeLeon said she's sad the man was killed but is also grateful no one else was injured.
"We don’t know exactly what he was going through. I know the police officers were giving him a chance to stop ... drop the gun ... but that didn’t happen," she said. "A lot of people were around him that could have gotten hurt."