Neighborhood takeover

Dallas police and SWAT occupied Lake Highlands streets and properties and blocked residents in or out of their homes for more than six hours

The emergency call came in at about 10 a.m. on a weekday morning last month. A man and woman had struggled over a gun, police quickly ascertained. The man, who reportedly was still armed, had locked himself inside a home on Moss Farm Lane. A neighbor who offered safety to the woman, an apparent victim of domestic violence, told the Advocate about her experience. The witness, a well-known member of the Lake Highlands community, asked not to be named because of the event’s violent nature.

"I was in my house and my friend was in the yard when she heard screaming. A woman was yelling for help, that ‘he was trying to kill her.’ We immediately got on the phone with 9-1-1 and the neighborhood patrol officer (NPO), respectively. Still on the phone, I stepped out and saw her. She was screaming at the top of her lungs and running. Then she fell face-down in the street, and a gun dropped from her hand. At her house, in the garage, I saw her husband. He saw us see him and the garage door dropped, not before their little dog ran. It bolted out the garage and down the street. We hollered at her to come in. She grabbed the gun and came in through our garage, and we had her drop the gun on our garage floor. The police arrived — first the NPO then the 9-1-1 responders. They talked to her. She described a struggle with the gun and hitting him with it. We stayed there a while, closed the blinds, as police took her statement. When she told them about more weapons, including an automatic weapon, inside the house, more police, SWAT, began arriving. At one point we left to a safe house, but were allowed to return home before the whole thing ended.

"In the late afternoon we heard a large blast. It shook the whole house. They had used some sort of explosive to blow the garage open. There were two blasts.

"They arrested him without further incident. Within moments of the arrest, they were gone, and the neighborhood is eerily quiet tonight.

"The couple had been married for maybe 15 years. They often threw backyard parties and seemed social, happy, based on what I have seen. I had never met him, but I knew her casually. The victim and the suspect have two children and a dog, a Shi Tzu named Tucker [who later was found by neighbor Rita Wilson]."

Police, according to the arrest report, charged the 45-year-old white male suspect with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

FOR DOMESTIC VIOLENCE RESOURCES, visit dallasdvresources.org or call 800.799.SAFE.

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