Police Chief Eddie Garcia on Monday released new details on last week’s shootout in far northeast Dallas involving officers serving an arrest warrant for capital murder.
Speaking to the press on November 20, Garcia revealed that in the early hours of November 16, a task force comprising officers and deputies from the U.S. Marshals, the Dallas County Sheriff’s Office, and the Dallas Police Department exchanged fire with a 20-year-old suspect named Jordan Owens. Owens was injured in the shootout but is now said to be in stable condition.
Owens’ warrant stems from his purported connection to a fatal shooting inside an apartment located in the 9700 block of Forest Lane in October, according to Garcia. The victim was 23-year-old Chiquavion Ross, who had died of his wounds at a nearby hospital.
“This suspect had already shown no regard for human life and tried to murder us last Thursday,” said Garcia.
Body cam footage from law enforcement suggests that the task force was immediately met with gunfire when they knocked on the door of the third-floor apartment believed to house the suspect in an attempt to serve the warrant. Owens was reportedly in possession of a Glock switch, which is an illegal device that converts a weapon from semi-automatic to automatic, allowing a shooter to fire by holding the trigger down as opposed to pulling the trigger individual times for each shot.
Garcia relayed that Owens shot more than 20 rounds at the task force officers.
As previously reported in The Dallas Express, an officer was shot during the operation, which occurred at a residence located in the 9900 block of Adleta Boulevard in District 10, which Council Member Kathy Stewart represents.
Garcia revealed that the officer in question, Sr. Cpl. Edgar Morales took a bullet to the lower leg when the suspect first opened fire. The officer is expected to make a full recovery.
“Fortunately, [we’re] here today instead of talking about an officer who died,” Garcia said.
As shown in the footage, after Morales was shot, Owens apparently continued refusing to comply with law enforcement’s requests to surrender, returning inside the apartment and beginning to throw things out the window.
A man and a woman called 911 to tell dispatch that they were inside the apartment with the suspect, who they said had been shot, and were worried that they were going to get shot themselves in the crossfire.
“We’re not trying to get hurt,” the female caller can be heard saying.
No other individuals were harmed during the exchange, although several neighbors reported being shocked at the show of violence.
“Whenever my lease is up, I’m going to get out of here. Now, knowing that this has happened, I will be a lot more cautious walking around, that’s for sure,” resident Sydney Yourse said, according to Fox 4 KDFW.
Owens now faces multiple charges on top of the single count of capital murder, including three counts of aggravated assault on a public servant.
The murder rate has continued to climb this year in Dallas, with 220 offenses logged by the City as of November 21, according to the police department’s crime analytics dashboard. This represents an increase of 12.8% year over year.
A significant shortage of officers has hindered DPD’s efforts to curb this rise in homicides. Although a previous City analysis recommended that a jurisdiction the size of Dallas have about 4,000 officers on staff, fewer than 3,200 officers currently serve the City.
Downtown Dallas reflects the effects of this drain on police resources by logging significantly higher crime rates than nearby Fort Worth’s downtown area, which benefits from a dedicated police unit that works in concert with private security guards.
