Get out of the car. Hang on. Hang on. Hang on. Keep your hands on the steering wheel. You don't do that kind of bull crap with me. Listen, I'm so sorry. I was I'm here to help her. I don't care. You don't cut across the highway like that. I apologize, sir. I apologize, man. 6615 stopping. I need a back and route west side. You can't do that kind of bull crap. Listen, I'm sorry. I was just trying to get over the uh I guess I had the green arrow. That was you that came through the light. You don't have any type of green arrow on the highway. No, no, no, no. I'm saying when I got back up 6:15 a place. almost like that. Right. But uh I had I had nothing to do with this. I'm just helping him, man. I know behind me though. As we were getting on, you was coming from the opposite direction. And as I turned, I had three arrow and that's how we got out on the service road real close together like that. And then when I came down, I was trying to get over, but I didn't want to cross the duck. I told you to go across that way and you went this way. I didn't see that. Your vehicle smells like weed. You got You got a gun in the car? Do you have any weapons in the car? Do you have any weapons in the car? No. Huh? You should have done what you were told, man. I told you to get over that way. See you. I have a Kenned officer out with me. Go ahead. Wait. Turn your turn your car off. Give me the keys. It is off. It is off. I need the keys. I tell you to turn the car off and give me the keys. No, I didn't. I just told you to turn the car off and give me the keys. Step out of the car. Step out of the car. Don't do that. Please don't touch me. Turn the car off. Don't do it. Turn the car off. No, you just turned it on. Off. Look. Step out of the car then. I'm not doing anything wrong, man. I'm telling you to step out of the car cuz your dog You just turned the car on again. Step out of the car. I'm not I'm not doing anything wrong, sir. Step out of the car, man. I'm not doing anything wrong. You are doing something. You just turned the car on when I told you to turn it off. Then hand me the keys then. I'm not doing Hand me the keys then. Doing that. Give me the keys. Please don't do that. See, you just turned it on again. Give me the keys. Listen, it's it's dead. Don't touch me, man. Give me the keys then. Don't put your [ __ ] hands on me, man. 650 code. Don't put your hands on me. Give me the keys. Don't put your hands on me. I'm not doing anything. Step out of the car. Don't put your hands on me, man. Don't do it. Turn the car off. Don't do it. Turn the car off. Don't do it. Turn the car off. Listen. Get your hands off me, man. You got a gun. You got a gun in the car. Quit reaching around. Listen, man. Don't I'm telling you right now. Quit reaching around. I'm telling you right now, get your hands off me, man. Turn the car off. Get your hands off me. Turn the car off and give us Get your hands off me. Give me the keys, then. Your keys are in the floorboard, man. Give me the keys then. Get your [ __ ] hands off me, man. [Music] 615 M34. He's got a gun. He's reaching. He's reaching. Don't do it. Get your hands up. Don't do it. Get your hands up. Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. Get your hands up. Don't do it. I'll kill you. Put the gun down. I know you will. Put the gun down. Don't do it. Put your hands up. Don't do it, man. Step away from my car. 615. Shots fired. Shots fired. He's still breathing. He's got the gun in his hand. You keep the dog in the back. Yes. Dog stepping out. Dog's coming out. [Music] 6:15. He shot three times. Uh he's going to need an ambulance. Heavy bleeding from the head. He's got a gun in his hand. He's moving. He's moving around. Hey, behind us. Check. That person's involved behind us. Gun in his hand. Yeah, he still has a gun in his hand. He's still moving around. Drop the [Music] gun. Drop the weapon. Drop the gun, man. He's still moving around, but I can't. He's got that gun in his hand. He was pointing it at us this way. Hold on. Hold it. The dog was in the back. The dog already got out. Get him out. Am I getting anybody? I think he's unarmed now. We're going to have to get him out the other side. There's no more. The dog got out of the car. [Music] Can you get Can we pull him out that way? I don't know what else he has in the car. You want to try to pull him out? [Music] Can we pull him down that way? [Music] [Music] 6:15. Don't let that [ __ ] [ __ ] leave. She was involved somehow in this. [Music] You take a break. Come on back, bud. Come on back. Yeah, dude. Gun right at me. I'm not going to say anything else. You're as solid as anybody I know, man. I gave him several attempts. Huh? I told him several times to stop. Probably need at least three units to shut down westbound at street. They want to turn around and get that 687. You can text as well making notifications. I think the dog took off running that way. Pit pull the dog out here somewhere. Put him in a car. I had the car in the front. Hey, sit on this side. Just sit right here. [Music] You want to take your gear off the highway, you need to fix 20. Yeah. Hey, but you're okay. I'm on scene. Where's the gun? Somebody else took it. Somebody else took it out of the white. Who's the white officer? That's a That's Kennedale. Huh? Kennedel. She stopped out with me cuz saw what was going on. What happened? He was trying to move over. He had like he was cutting across all lanes. I was like, "No way. Stop this." I told him to get over that way. He starts cutting over this way instead in front of me. And so that's why I'm positioned where I'm at because he cut me off. And so I got out. I said, "Hey, get out of the car. You got a dog in the car. Get out of the car." Was he in the driver's seat at that time? Yeah. So what was he doing in the what's he doing? Because he started fighting us. He reached over. He climbed over that side. Got to his side. Me and her get to his side and start doing this. And so I was like, "Drop the gun. Drop the gun." That's all I could do. We're in the inside westbound lane just east of Green Oaks. I see you. You want to take your gear off at all? No, man. I'm going to have to wear it to ride to my bike where I'm going to ride my bike [Music] to Kelly. I see. Can you go and have a UAS operator around the message board and let us know we're folks down the one lane or CIT 15. We're getting on 20 westbound. Is there a place you can use us? Check in with 522. We're trying to shut down westbound 20 at Park Springs down to one [Music] lane 651. The whole highway is shut down. Everybody's exiting at Park Springs. We got a significant backup between the scene and Park Springs. 31. Go ahead. Okay. Clear the channel so we can talk on it. We can't get on our radios and talk. Copy a plate possibly involved or a witnessed Tom Lincoln Sam 8957. Tom Lincoln Sam 8957. It's still here at the scene. He was trying to go He was trying to cut across to go help her what he was saying. So that's fine, but you can't cut across highway like that. Especially when I'm right behind you toward the other other side. Authorizing code for traffic. You APA or AMPA? Uh, ama? TMPA. You want to make a call to Sobias? Yeah, I need to call somebody. I need something. You have your phone with you. My [Music] [Music] motorcycle running around. Where's it at? just up on the dash. Yeah, you'll see it on the left hand side by the by [Music] the roadside assistance and route reference to subjects flat tire that's involved in this. You all right, brother? Yeah. Why don't we do this body warning camera at this point? Okay. We are recording. All right. This is an internal affairs recorded interview. Today is Thursday, February 29th, 2024 at 8:54 a.m. The location is internal affairs conference room and present is 24-fi-00002 alleging potential misconduct on the part on February 8, 2024. The alleged misconduct includes the charges of uh APD general orders for 1.04 deadly force. All right. I'll go ahead and read you your Garity. So, I'm going to give you this just so you can read along. Um once we're done with that, if you want to give it to Sergeant Long and then he'll sign it and then I'll give you another one so you can have a copy as well. APD general orders 41.04 deadly force. This questioning concerns administrative matters relating to the official business of the city of Arlington. You are not being questioned for the purpose of instituting a criminal prosecution against you. During the course of this questioning, even if you do disclose information which indicated that you may be guilty of criminal conduct, neither your self-inccriminating statements nor the fruits of any self-inccriminating statements you make will be used against you in a criminal legal proceedings. Other than for impeachment purposes, perjury, prosecution, or possible grand jury review by subpoena. Since this is an administrative matter and any self-inccriminating information you may disclose will not be used against you in a criminal proceeding except as indicated above, you are required to respond to this questioning fully and truthfully. If you refuse to answer these questions, this in itself is a violation of the rules of city of Arlington and you will be subjected to disciplinary action. You are further ordered not to discuss this inter internal investigation with anyone other than your attorney including but not limited to witness or prospective witnesses. Do you understand? Yes. Okay. You want to sign that? I got a say the 28th 29th. All right, I'll go ahead and read the triplet this morning. Before we begin, let me remind you about the importance of being honest during our interview. City of Arlington personnel policy to 1.08. Testimony and answering questions sake. Employee shall truthfully answer all questions put to him or her by supervisor and render material requested related to the employees duty and conduct and also to the operations and efficiency of its department and its personnel. For purposes of this paragraph, supervisor includes any employee designated to exercise authority in a given situation. Please keep in mind that internal affairs is the investigative arm of the chief of police and therefore you should answer questions by us the same way you would answer questions asked of you by the chief of police. Do you understand? Okay. Yes. Um, finally, for transcription purposes, please let me finish speaking before you speak, and I will let you finish speaking before I speak. Okay. Okay. And that's kind of why we put that pretty uh layer on there. All right. So, just going to start off uh just with some basic background information uh from you. Once I get that, I'll kind of give you a layout of what we've already reviewed. Um, and then we'll get into the questions after that. Okay. Um, how long have you been employed by ABD? Uh, 9 years in July. Okay. And any prior law enforcement? No. Okay. And what's your current assignment? On traffic motors? And what other specialized units do you have? I was on the heat team. No, the CAT team for two years prior to that. And then before that I was on um C shift, you know, um on Southside. Okay. Uh any other specialized units you're in right now? No. Uh or what about any other units? You mean like helping out with other things? So I'm the defense attack coordinator, um Spanish instructor, firearms instructor, and that's it, I think. Yep. Are you on SWAT? No, I was on part-time SWAT for three years. Okay. Was that recently or came off has been six months? I think it's been six months now. Okay. But for three years. Cool. Part time. Um, while you were on SWAT team, did you receive additional tactics training as being a member of SWAT? Yes. Okay. What would those include? Um, building clearances, working as a team, firearms, extra firearms instruction, special weapons, um, instructions. um extra rifle training uh tact different tactics um diversionary weapons things like that. Would you say the majority of it was additional training for high risk situations? Yes. Okay. All right. All right. So, this investigation is about a traffic stop that occurred on February 8th, 2024 near 5400 West I20. Uh, have you been given opportunity to watch the videos of this incident prior to the interview? Yes. All right. So, up to this point, I reviewed your statement given to homicide detectives, other supplement reports, body warns, uh, DVR, radio traffic, and call sheet. I have a couple questions to ask regarding this incident re relevant to the administrative investigation. Okay. Um, this is your opportunity to further discuss the incident as well as add any additional information that you may not have included in your statement to homicide. Um, you do have a copy of uh your statement. I just wanted to confirm that that is your statement that you gave to homicide. It is. Yes, sir. Okay. Is everything in that statement true and correct to the best of your knowledge? Yes. Okay. All right. So, from your report, it states you initiated a traffic stop near or about 5400 West I20 on February 8, 2024. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. Um, and keep in mind the majority of that um I'm going to take as being factual. So, I'm not going to ask you questions that you've already kind of written out or or answer for homicide in your narrative. So, mainly just kind of a few details uh from that scenario though. Um, so skipping forward to at what point did you see the suspect with the weapon during the traffic stop? Whenever he was moving to the passenger side and he leaned over as I'm pulling on his foot and I see it coming out. Okay. Do you know how he had it on him? I can either I don't know exactly but it came from the waistband or the right side hip wherever his pocket or his waistband. I don't I don't know. Okay. But as soon as he went over to the passenger side, that's when you had seen the weapon. That's whenever he was reaching really hard for it and then I saw it coming out. Okay. Uh could you describe the weapon? Uh it was a blackish brown um semi-automatic pistol. Okay. Did you believe at the time that a lesser amount of force would have been effective in subduing the suspect? No. Do you believe that there were any other options available other than deadly force at the time of incident? No. Can you give the reasons why deadly force was necessary? Because he was presenting me with a deadly threat. No other option would do. You know, other options on my belt would have been taser sprayed, but none of that would overcome a deadly threat. Okay. There were lots of other things going on around like moving vehicles. Um, so if he would have started shooting at me first, there could have been other people that could have gotten shot um or hurt or seriously injured. So, okay. All right. So, prior to loading your handgun, how many rounds were in your magazine? 17 in the magazine and one in the chamber. And how many magazines do you carry? Uh, three. So, the one in the pistol and then two more. Uh, did you change the condition of the weapon between the end of the shooting and the countdown with crime scene? No. Did you change anything on your uniform between the end of the shooting and the countdown with crime scene? No. Is there anything that we didn't cover or that isn't in your statement that should be considered? No. All right. You got the book. All right. This concludes the recorded interview of Officer Merritt. Are there any points that you believe are important and were not covered? No. I'd like to ask you if there are any other comments or statements you would like to make? No. Are there any documents, audio recordings, video recordings, or any other evidence related to this case that exists uh and you are aware of that you don't believe we possess? I'm not aware of any of it. Okay. And same question, do you possess any of this material? No. All right. For the record, when the recorder is turned off, there will be no further discussions about this matter. You're directed not to discuss this case with anyone except your legal counsel, mental health services provider, and any related criminal investigator for Pipole. And you choose to do so. Do you understand? Yes. All right. The time is now 9:04 a.m.