Texas Officer Fatally Shoots Unarmed Man Walking With Pants Down

An unarmed black man who was shot dead by a Texas police offi­cer last Thursday had been walk­ing towards the cop with his pants down when the offi­cer fired the lethal shot, accord­ing to video of the shoot­ing released by the Harris County Sheriff’s Office on Monday.

In the clip, tak­en from Deputy Cameron Brewer’s dash­board cam­era, 34-year-old Danny Ray Thomas can be seen walk­ing in the mid­dle of a Houston road with his pants around his ankles.

Brewer had stopped his car at an inter­sec­tion after notic­ing a skir­mish between Thomas and anoth­er man, who is seen in the video shov­ing Thomas.

Brewer, who is black, stepped out of the vehi­cle and can be heard repeat­ed­ly shout­ing, “Get down, man! Get down on the ground,” as Thomas approached him. A sin­gle gun­shot then rings out off­screen before Brewer appears at the bot­tom edge of the video, appar­ent­ly attempt­ing to per­form CPR on the wound­ed man.

Thomas, who was unarmed, was trans­port­ed to a local hos­pi­tal and lat­er pro­nounced dead.

Family mem­bers told the Chronicle that Thomas had suf­fered from depres­sion. His two young chil­dren, they said, had died in 2016 after alleged­ly being drowned by their moth­er, who has been charged with mur­der and is await­ing tri­al. https://​www​.huff​in​g​ton​post​.com/​e​n​t​r​y​/​d​a​n​n​y​-​r​a​y​-​t​h​o​m​a​s​-​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​s​h​o​o​t​i​n​g​-​t​e​x​a​s​-​u​n​a​r​m​e​d​_​u​s​_​5​a​b​b​3​7​b​8​e​4​b​0​6​4​0​9​7​7​5​b​3​0b3