Black Man Who Spoke in Support of Police Fatally Shot by Texas Police Officer
A Black man was fatally shot by a police officer at a gas station in Wolfe City, Texas, Saturday night, and witnesses say it happened while he was attempting to intervene in a domestic situation. According to the man’s family, he was a city worker who was beloved in his community, but what makes this story even more tragic is that just months before the shooting, he spoke in support of police on social media.
According to KHOU 11, police officials haven’t identified the victim or released many details related to the shooting. All they have said so far is that the officer involved has been placed on administrative leave and an investigation by the Texas Rangers into the shooting is underway, but the man’s family identified him as 31-year-old Jonathan Price.
From KHOU:
Relatives and friends said 31-year-old Price was a city employee and beloved in the Wolfe City community, about an hour northeast of Dallas.
Marcella Louis was in bed when she got the call about the shooting. She rushed to the gas station to get near her son.
“And they wouldn’t let me get close to my baby. I just wanted to hold his hand and they wouldn’t let me do that,” Louis said. “I just wanted to crawl over there to him.”
The mother said she wasn’t surprised to hear her son was trying to intervene in a fight.
“That’s what he always did, tried to help others. I taught him that all the years,” Louis said.
Witnesses said a man and a woman were in an argument, and Price tried to step in. The man assaulted Price, and when officers arrived, they used a taser on Price before the shooting.
Kyla Sanders—a community member who was at a store across the street from the gas station during the shooting—told reporters Price was a “pillar of the community” and that she rushed over to see what happened after hearing gunshots and was shocked to see who had been killed.
“We were all in shock,” Sanders said, KHOU reports. “Why would a cop shoot somebody?”
“We all love him and think so highly of him and just the nicest guy you could ever meet,” Sanders continued. “We’re all devastated, shocked, we don’t really know what to do or where to go from here.”
Many people from the community expressed similar sentiments on social media.
This one hurts... for so many reasons. pic.twitter.com/Z1gTYJFXuX
— Will Middlebrooks (@middlebrooks) October 4, 2020
