A licensed security guard shot and killed a man over the weekend who had purportedly pointed a firearm at him on the property of a Dallas hotel.
The shooting occurred Saturday afternoon in the 4100 block of Preferred Place in Council Member Zarin Gracey’s District 3. Officers received a call and responded to the incident at around 12:45 p.m.
According to the Dallas Police Department’s crime blog, a 33-year-old security guard named Michael Alexander encountered two men who “did not belong on the property.”
He told them to leave the premises. While escorting the men off the property, Alexander noticed one of the two men “was carrying a handgun.” That man, 30-year-old Cameron Birdwell, allegedly raised his weapon and leveled it at Alexander.
Birdwell was shot during an exchange of gunfire. First responders with Dallas Fire-Rescue took him to a local hospital, but he died from his wounds.
DPD did not report any other injuries and noted that the shooting would be referred to a grand jury.
It is unclear which hotel the shooting occurred at, but four are located in the vicinity of the block listed by DPD.
According to the City of Dallas crime analytics dashboard, there have been 122 murders committed this year as of August 4.
DPD has been struggling with staffing issues for several years now, a situation that has dampened its efforts to fight crime. Only around 3,000 sworn officers are currently in the field, despite a prior City analysis recommending a force of roughly 4,000 based on the Dallas’ population.
The Dallas City Council signed off on a budget of only $654 million for DPD this fiscal year, considerably less taxpayer money than was spent on public safety in other high-crime jurisdictions, such as Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City.
