Citing a statement from the Arlington Police Department, the Associated Press reported police responded to a burglary call after a auto had been driven through the front window of the Classic Buick GMC vehicle dealership in Arlington.
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Authorities identified the suspect as 19-year-old Christian Taylor. He had been working under supervision since graduating from the police academy in March.
Taylor was a football player at Angelo State University and graduated from Mansfield Summit High School in 2014.
Miller has been placed on paid leave as an investigation into the incident gets underway.
The officer who shot Taylor, a rising college sophomore, was 49-year-old Brad Miller, who had no police experience before joining the Arlington Police Department in September. He said he has many unanswered questions and doesn’t believe Taylor was burglarizing the dealership as police suspected.
The suspect, who was pronounced dead at the scene, was not armed with a weapon, Rodriguez said.
The medical examiner office of the Tarrant Country had identified the teen as Christian Taylor from Arlington and is a student at the San Angelo State University.
“The preservation of life and safety is our highest priority”. “As an agency, we take the loss of any human life as serious, but we owe it to our community to conduct a clear and transparent investigation to determine what exactly took place”. And they say he was shot and killed after an “altercation” with police. “Nuh-uh. Something doesn’t sound right”, Fuller told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
In a Twitter posting, football coach Will Wagner said, “Heart is hurting.”
According to Arlington police report, the charge stemmed from a September 2013 traffic stop in which Taylor was found in possession of 11 hydrocodone tablets that were not prescribed to him. He successfully completed probation in June and his case was dismissed July 14.
Arlington police released a statement about Taylor’s death Friday afternoon.
Just one week earlier, Taylor, tweeting from the handle @he_got_sneaks, wrote an ominous message: “I don’t wanna die too younggggg”.
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A little less than a year ago, only days after the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, which quickly became a national story and began changing the media’s perspective towards police abuse and killings, Taylor tweeted that he did not feel protected by police.
