A police chase on Monday ended on the side of the freeway with one man dead and one woman critically injured.
At approximately 3:30 p.m., a Richardson Fire Department arson investigator alerted police that he saw a black SUV that was allegedly connected to a homicide in Kaufman County.
Richardson police attempted to stop the vehicle in the 500 block of Centennial Road in Richardson, but the driver refused to stop and began to accelerate. Police pursued the vehicle as it continued westward into Dallas. The vehicle turned southward on Esperanza, and in the 13600 block, the driver began shooting at the pursuing officers. One police officer returned fire.
The vehicle eventually came to a stop in the 13100 block of the southbound frontage road of North Central Expressway, near the I-635 interchange.
Police approached the vehicle using drones and ballistic shields and discovered the driver had a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The female passenger in the front seat had multiple gunshot wounds, which investigators later determined were inflicted by the driver.
Three children in the backseat of the vehicle — ages 17, 15, and 5 — were not physically harmed in the incident. The female passenger was transported to a nearby hospital in critical condition, and the male driver was pronounced dead at the scene.
The male driver was a suspect in a Kaufman County murder investigation, but police gave no further information about the murder investigation. Police have not publicly identified the occupants of the vehicle involved in the chase.
No police officers were injured in the incident.
The southbound frontage road of Central Expressway was closed as investigators worked the crime scene, and traffic along the freeway’s southbound lanes was backed up as far as Campbell Road during the afternoon rush hour.
Dallas police are leading the investigation into the shooting of the two individuals in the front seat of the SUV, as it took place within Dallas city limits. The Richardson police officer who fired his weapon during the chase has been placed on administrative leave as the investigation continues, as per standard policy.
As of September 16, 139 homicides and 4,351 aggravated assaults have been reported in Dallas this year, according to the City of Dallas crime analytics dashboard. The Dallas Police Department has been hampered in its efforts to fight crime by a limited budget and a chronic shortage of police officers.
The department has roughly 3,000 officers, despite a City analysis that recommended about 4,000 officers for a city the size of Dallas. This fiscal year, the DPD was allocated a budget of $654 million, significantly less than the budgets of other high-crime cities, such as Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City.
The police chase ended in District 11, which is represented by Dallas City Council Member Jaynie Schultz.