Arlington police release body-camera video after two officers fatally shoot armed man

The Arlington Police Department has released body-worn camera footage of the Oct. 7 shooting in which officers killed a man who they said pointed a handgun at them.

Officers were called to an apartment complex in the 1400 block of E. Lamar Blvd. at about 9 p.m. to investigate reports of a suspicious man who was looking into cars in the parking lot, Arlington Police Chief Al Jones told media at a press conference on Thursday, Oct. 24.

The 911 caller told dispatchers that the man might be armed, Jones said. At 9:11 p.m., officers arrived at the scene and quickly located the man, who was identified as 34-year-old Tony Dupree Coward, lying on his back on the hood of a car.

In the body-camera footage, officers shined a flashlight and announced themselves as police to Coward. As Coward sat up, officers noticed a handgun near his hip and began giving commands to Coward to show his hands.

Coward reached down, grabbed the handgun and began pointing it at the officers, the video showed. Both officers fired their weapons multiple times at Coward.

“The last thing anyone in this department wants to do is use deadly force,” Jones said. “[Ninety-nine percent] of the time we’re able to successfully resolve situations without reaching that point.”

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Officers provided aid to Coward until medics arrived on the scene and transported him to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead, Jones said.

Investigators recovered a spent shell casing at the scene and found a direct match to Coward’s gun, he said. Although difficult to see in the footage, the shell casing indicates that Coward fired one round during the shooting, Jones said.

Coward did not live at the apartment complex, but had a family member who did, which explains why he was in the area, Jones said. Police remain unclear as to what Coward was doing in the parking lot, as it appeared that no vehicles had been broken into.

The two officers who shot Coward were placed on administrative leave following the shooting, and are both now back at work, Jones said.

Both the criminal and administrative investigations of this case remain ongoing.