BURLESON, Texas — A Cleburne police officer was shot in the leg and a man was shot and killed Monday evening after a pursuit that began in Cleburne ended in the parking lot of a Sam’s Club in Burleson, the Cleburne Police Department said.
Officers responded at about 6:50 p.m. Monday to a report of an individual brandishing a firearm, according to a news release from the department. The individual was in a vehicle, and a pursuit began after officers arrived. The pursuit ran through Alvarado and north on Interstate 35W before ending near the Sam’s Club at 600 N. Burleson Blvd., the release said. A call for a “critical incident” went out just after 7 p.m., CBS News Texas reported.
“Shots were fired during the incident,” the department said. “The individual was struck and pronounced deceased at the scene.”
Free — the opening chapterUnits Are SurroundedFive shootings in five months between members of the Soboba Indian Reservation and law enforcement in the Hemet area of Riverside County. My story about being in the middle of it. The full book is coming.Read how it starts
One Cleburne officer was struck in the leg by gunfire and was taken to a hospital for treatment, the department said. The officer is in stable condition. NBC 5 reported the officer remained stable as of 9:30 p.m.
Cleburne Mayor Derek Weathers said in a statement, “On behalf of the city, my wife, and I, our thoughts and prayers are with the officer, who is stable.”
The department has not named the officer or the individual who was killed, and has not said whether the individual fired, whether a weapon was recovered, how many officers fired, or how many rounds were fired.
Two Johnson County sheriff’s deputies were involved in the incident, NBC 5 reported. Officers from the Burleson Police Department, the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office and the Texas Department of Public Safety also responded, according to FOX 4. Burleson police were not involved in the shooting itself.
Witnesses described gunfire in and around the store while customers were inside. Michael Anthony Garcia, who was in the parking lot, told CBS News Texas he heard “one gunshot and return fire from the officers” and saw the suspect go down. Garcia said he fashioned a tourniquet for the wounded officer before other officers took over. “It was a scary moment,” Garcia told FOX 4. “I hadn’t witnessed anything like that. I was caught in the middle.”
Dylan Trim, a Sam’s Club employee who was working after his first day of college, told CBS News Texas he saw patrol cars arriving with sirens and then heard popping. “Next thing you know, a guy walks in — he has a rifle, what appears to be a shotgun in his right hand, and he just fires a shot,” Trim said. “Everyone was screaming. There were about seven more shots.”
Those accounts have not been confirmed by investigators, and the department’s release does not describe a weapon.
The Texas Rangers were notified and responded to the scene as a matter of department protocol and will conduct the investigation, Cleburne police said. The release directs all inquiries to the DPS Ranger Division. In Texas, an outside agency handling an officer-involved shooting is standard for departments that do not run their own major-incident units; the Rangers’ findings go to the district attorney for review.
The department said the investigation is active and ongoing and that the information released so far is preliminary.
This is a developing story.
Units Are Surrounded
The new book from Ray Dietrich. Five shootings in five months in Riverside County. The full book is coming - read how it starts, free.
