Armed man shot by Dallas police during a fight with officers has died, police say
A 30-year-old man shot by a Dallas police officer earlier this week following a drug deal in a Lake Highlands parking lot died Thursday, police said.
The Dallas Morning News reported that Kyle Dail died at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas.
Dail, who Dallas police say was armed and pulled a handgun during a fight with officers, was hospitalized late Wednesday after the shooting at a gas station in the 13000 block of Jupiter Road, near Interstate 635.
Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia said Friday that it was the fourth case of a shooting involving a Dallas police officer in 2022.
“This event is traumatic. This is traumatic to the family of Kyle Dail. We recognize that,” Garcia said in a Friday news conference. “But it’s also traumatic to the officers involved.”
The police chief said that Dail was a convicted felon who should not have had a firearm.
On Wednesday night, Dallas police were investigating drug complaints outside of the LBJ Foodmart on Jupiter Road in Dallas.
At 10:20 p.m., Dallas police observed a drug transaction in the parking lot of the gas station. A suspect, later identified as Kyle Dail, made multiple hand-to-hand drug sales, police said. He got into a car and drove away as Dallas police attempted a traffic stop.
The driver did not stop as officers and a police helicopter attempted to follow the suspect, and they lost sight of the vehicle, police said.
Just after 11:30 p.m. Wednesday, Dallas police found the car back at the gas station, with the suspect inside the business.
Store surveillance video and a police body camera video shown at Friday’s press conference showed that Dail was inside the convenience store when three officers approached him.
At around 11:43 pm, Dallas Officers Thomas Hoffman, Noah Hemm and Michael Piering of Northeast patrol responded and entered the store, where Dail was standing facing the back wall.
The officers approached Dail from behind and attempted to arrest him.
The suspect started to resist the officers and officers struggled to take him into custody, police said the video shows.
During that struggle, Dail pulled a handgun from his front pants pocket and raised it in the air in front of Hoffman’s face, according to the video.
After Dail took out the handgun, Hoffman fired his weapon, hitting the suspect.
When reviewing store surveillance cameras and the officers’ body-worn cameras, detectives saw the suspect remove the handgun from his pocket.
An officer can be heard on the body-cam video warning the other officers that Dail had a gun.
In the video, Dail transitions the weapon from his right to his left hand then throws the gun to another aisle in the business.
A moment after Dail threw his gun, Hoffman fired his duty weapon, police said.
Hoffman, a three-year veteran of the Dallas Police Department, was the only officer to discharge his weapon in this incident, Dallas police said.
Dail was transported to the hospital, where he died Thursday.
“This is never our intended outcome,” the police chief said. “It’s unfortunate that this occurred.”
The officers were not injured.
The Dallas County District Attorney’s Office and Office of Police Oversight were notified and responded.
An investigation is ongoing, police said.
