Dallas Police Officer Celebrated For Calm Under Fire
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DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - Dallas Police Sr. Corporal Cassie Dotsy wasn't looking for trouble Tuesday night. "I was actually in the parking lot working on an accident report," says Dotsy.
And yet when she heard gunfire in the Walmart parking lot off Samuell Blvd., she ran toward it. "I heard the shots, I knew that they were close and I immediately looked up to see where they were coming from… because they were too close to me. As I looked up, I could see all of the patrons of the Walmart running out. They were startled. And I knew then something as really, really wrong."
According to Dallas police, Marcus Bartholomew Booker, entered the store and pointed a handgun at a cashier demanding money. Before the cashier could respond, Booker fired several shots into the floor and into the cash register, sending employees and customers scrambling for cover. Booker then walked toward the exit door and fired at least one more shot before passing through the exit door.
"All of a sudden you hear `boom boom boom boom boom'," says Jacob Flores, "and then you hear screaming and crying and everybody's like…`where's an exit? where's an exit?' It was just horrible." Flores and his family were inside that Walmart when the shots rang out. But, they couldn't see that the gunman had fired into the floor. In light of recent events, Flores admits, he thought the worst.
"I thought people were dying. I thought they were just shooting everywhere in the front," says Flores. "A cashier came running to the back saying `they shot my friend…she's dead'. It was crazy. It was just a horrible experience for us."
Jacob and Desiree Pacheco and their two toddlers managed to escape out the back. In spite of the panic fueled rumors, no one was injured. Still, they say they are shaken.
"Yesterday, I went to another Walmart and I broke down three times," says Pacheco.
On Tuesday night, as Sr. Corporal Dotsy tracked the armed suspect through the parked cars, she says she wasn't thinking about the controversy surrounding police shootings around the country. Nor could she stop to think about police policy changes designed to deescalate confrontations with suspects. Frankly, she says, there was no time to think at all.
"The department has spent hours in training, training us to be responsive to situations like that. We go through reality based training … some of those scenarios are just like that. My training kicked in. I didn't think about—I didn't have TIME to think about anything else!"
Ultimately, she says, the suspect responded to her verbal commands and dropped his weapon. A couple of bystanders also ignored the danger and rushed to help… holding the suspect down until Dallas County Sheriff's Deputy M. Bailey, #707, who was working off-duty at the store, placed him in handcuffs.
And while being celebrated for her 'calm under fire', Sr. Crpl. Dotsy can't say enough about the citizens who got involved.
"He (Booker) wasn't trying to easily be handcuffed. I appreciate them more than anything… because without them, I think it could have been so much worse."
Marcus Booker is in the Dallas County Jail charged with Aggravated Robbery.
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