Police have charged a local man with attempted capital murder after he allegedly tried to hang himself and his 8-year-old son at a residence in McKinney.
Officers with the McKinney Police Department were called to a residence on Copperhead Lane on June 23 after receiving a “suicidal threats call,” reported WFAA.
Police arrived to find the suspect and a young boy hanging from a staircase baluster with rope around their necks.
“Our officers immediately cut the rope and provided life-saving measures to both [the suspect] and the child,” said police in a statement to The Dallas Morning News.
Both individuals were taken to a nearby hospital. The child has since been discharged, according to Fox 4.
The suspect was identified by authorities as 32-year-old Kendall Pierre Thigpen-Watkins. Police took him into custody three days later, and he is currently being held on a $300,000 bond. He is charged with attempted capital murder of a person under 10 years of age, per Collin County jail records.
No additional information about the incident has been made available by authorities.
Under Section 12.31 of the Texas Penal Code, Thigpen-Watkins faces the death penalty or life in prison without parole. Violent
Violent crime has become a serious problem around the metroplex, but especially in Dallas, where murders spiked by more than 20% year over year during the first four months of 2023 — the only stretch of time that the City has public-facing crime statistics for that the Dallas Police Department (DPD) is willing to stand by.
DPD has been suffering from a staffing shortage, with DPD Police Chief Eddie Garcia saying the department needs several hundred more officers in an interview with The Dallas Express.
The police shortage is being especially felt in Downtown Dallas, which regularly clocks significantly more crime than Fort Worth’s downtown area, which has the benefit of a dedicated police unit working alongside private security guards.