Man Dead After Threatening Suicide On Facebook & Leading FWPD On Chase
FORT WORTH (CBSDFW.COM) - Police in Fort Worth are still investigating after an early morning welfare check ended with shots fired, a chase, crash and death of a man believed to be from Florida.
The incident started just after 3:00 a.m. when police in Florida notified officials in Fort Worth about a man from their area who was on Facebook Live threatening to commit suicide.
Fort Worth police were able to track the man and found that he was in the south part of their city.
Several officers went to the area, near East Berry and Interstate-35W, when one spotted the man in his car.
During a morning press conference Fort Worth police Sergeant Chris Britt had more details, saying, "They located that suspect, attempted to stop him in his vehicle to check on his welfare, because again he was making threats to harm himself so they wanted to check on his well-being. When they made contact with him he produced some sort of weapon and did actually fire his weapon at our officers."
There was gunfire exchanged and the man sped away, but stopped again near Evans and Berry Street where fired more shots. Each time officers returned fire and ultimately chased the man to Main Street and Berry where he crashed into a pole.
After the smoke cleared 2 patrol cars had been hit by gunfire and the suspect was dead.
It still isn't known if the man, who has not been identified, died a result of police gunfire, suicide, or the crash.
"And my understanding is [that] on social media he was displaying a weapon as well. And I can tell you we have found multiple weapons that were in his possession out here," Britt said.
None of the 5 officers involved were injured, but Sergeant Britt said while none were physically harmed, "...they were just involved in a very traumatic incident. We've got multiple officers that were involved in this that are pretty shaken up right now. Because you gotta remember that they were fired at in this situation. So they were in a very dangerous situation themselves, just in an attempt to try and help somebody who was obviously having a very bad time."
Investigators said all of the officers will be interviewed at some point to try and figure out exactly what happened.