DALLAS – Officers shot a man involved in a domestic disturbance outside the Dallas Love Field airport terminal after he rushed one of them, a police spokesman said Friday.
A father was throwing rocks at the mother of his children outside the baggage claim area, Assistant Police Chief Randy Blankenbaker told reporters.
An officer who responded was able to move the woman away, “but the individual came toward him again, and so he discharged his weapon a number of times,” Blankenbaker said.
The man was struck several times and was taken to a hospital. Blankenbaker did not release his name or his condition.
The woman was unhurt; police believe no children were present at the time, Blankenbaker said.
Witness Bryan Armstrong said it appeared the man was approaching the officer with a large rock when he was shot in the early-afternoon incident.
The officer told the man to “drop the rock and stop walking,” but he continued to approach the officer slowly as people came through the terminal door unaware of what was happening, Armstrong told CNN.
Nine shots can be heard on a video Armstrong posted to Instagram. A woman is crying in the background of the video as someone screams, “Get down!”
After the sound of gunshots, a male voice can be heard shouting, “Stay down, stay down!”
Warning: The video may be disturbing to some viewers. Click here to watch.
The airport remained open throughout the incident, though it did prompt security screening delays, Blankenbaker said.
“During the shooting, we believe there were some folks in the security line who were startled, and so they went through the security line without being checked,” he said, “so the airport decided to pull everybody back out of the secure area and recheck them for security purposes.”
Within an hour, however, the airport tweeted that lines through security were “moving fast.” But there were many departure delays, it said.
