Michael Dean was a 28-year-old man who was shot and killed by a police officer during a routine traffic stop in Temple, Texas. Dean was born on May 5, 1991 to Moses and Christine Dean Jr. in Waco, Texas. He graduated from Temple High School in 2010 and pursued a business degree at Temple College. He also attended A New Day Fellowship Church in Temple. Known as “Mike” to family and friends, Dean had three daughters, Ah’Nyla Lanae, Te’Yanna Prenique, and Destiny Lariah.
On the evening of December 2, 2019, Temple Police Officer Carmen DeCruz observed Michael Dean speeding and attempted to pull him over. Dean did not stop immediately which led to a short pursuit. When Dean stopped his vehicle at an intersection, DeCruz used his squad car to block Dean’s vehicle. The officer approached Dean with his service weapon drawn and ordered him to turn off the engine and hand over the keys. As DeCruz reached for the keys with his left hand, he fired the gun with his right hand. The bullet struck Dean in the head. DeCruz attempted to offer medical assistance but Dean died on the scene. Dean was unarmed at the time of the shooting.
The Texas Rangers arrived on the scene and immediately assumed control of the investigation. The Southwest Institute of Forensic Sciences declared Dean’s death a homicide. DeCruz told investigators he fired the gun inadvertently, but Dean’s family questioned why the officer, a 9-year veteran of the police force, pointed the weapon directly at Dean who did not pose a threat to public safety. They also noted that the stretch of road where DeCruz first attempted to pull Dean over was dark and had no streetlights. They believed Dean was merely pulling ahead to a well-lighted intersection for his own safety.
In February of 2020, DeCruz was charged with manslaughter, a second-degree felony. Lee Merritt, the attorney for Dean’s family, called the charge inadequate and pressed for a first-degree murder change. The Temple Police Department has refused to release dashboard and body-camera footage of the incident. The local chapter of the NAACP led a march a few days after the incident and continues to protest the failure of the Texas Rangers and other authorities to provide information about the investigation (Coen 1-2).
Dean, a father of three, died at the scene. He was found to be unarmed. According to his family’s attorney Lee Merritt he had just come from picking up a birthday cake for his daughter when the shooting happened.
Eight days after the shooting, on Dec. 10, Temple police identified Carmen DeCruz as the officer who shot Dean. He was put on administrative leave.
In February he was arrested and charged with manslaughter and later resigned from the police department.
DeCruz was indicted in March and spent about a month in jail. He was later released in March after his bond was lowered from half a million dollars to $80,000.
"It was a menial percentage of what he was held on,” said DeShaundra Dean, a sister of Michael Dean. “A life was taken. It doesn’t matter if you did it accidentally or not.”
The Dean family’s attorney Lee Merritt, who has gone on to represent other families in high profile police brutality cases, released a statement on the anniversary of Dean’s death.
“Michael Dean should be celebrating his daughter’s 7th birthday today. Instead, he was shot at point blank range in the head a year ago on the side of the road in Temple, Texas. He was unarmed and nonviolent. The legal apparatus within the city and county has failed to display any signs of transparency and continues to withhold body and dash camera footage of Michael’s death. While Michael’s family continues to grieve, Carmen DeCruz was given a reduced bail amount and can spend his holidays home with his family, a luxury that can never be enjoyed by Michael Dean’s family ever again. On the anniversary of his death, this family renews their calls for transparency and swiftness in prosecuting Michael’s killer.”
Since the shooting, the family, the attorney and the Temple NAACP have been calling for the release of the body camera and dash camera video showing the incidents. The city has refused to release it claiming it’s “in an effort to protect witnesses that can be seen in the footage.”
The family also said they are frustrated with a lack of change at Temple Police Department since their brother’s death.
“There’s been no information as far as them doing additional training so you don’t have incidents with officers who take matters into their own hands and end up where we are now-- talking to you with our brother in the ground behind us,” said Tosheena Dean.
A pre-trial hearing for ex-officer DeCruz is scheduled for January 15, 2021 (Crown 1-2).
A Texas police officer who fatally shot an unarmed man in the head in December opened fire while the pair had “an altercation of some sort,” according to a report filed in compliance with a law meant to provide more transparency in police shootings.
Temple officer Carmen DeCruz tried to pull Michael Dean over for speeding on the night of Dec. 2, but the 28-year-old did not stop and “a short pursuit ensued,” states a report city police sent to the Texas attorney general’s office.
Dean eventually pulled over and DeCruz, 52, approached his PT Cruiser. Then “there was an altercation of some sort between” the men, the report states, and during it the officer’s “service weapon discharged” striking Dean.
The report does not describe the “altercation” further. It’s “unknown” whether Dean attempted to injure the officer or others, according to the report, but the most serious offense he would have been charged with is “evading in a vehicle.”
Despite the questions it leaves open, the seven-page document offers some of the only available details on what led up to Dean’s death two months ago. Police in Temple, a city of 76,000 people about 70 miles (112 kilometers) northeast of Austin, have said little about the shooting and consistently referred questions to the Texas Rangers, who are leading the investigation.
Dallas attorney Lee Merritt, who is representing Dean’s family, suggested that Dean was looking for a safe place to pull over, not evading the officer. He called the report “disingenuous.”
“When it gets down to the critical juncture they leave out all the important detail, which leaves Mr. DeCruz a great deal of latitude to change his story at some later date,” said Merritt. “This seems to be an attempt to try to justify what is clearly unjustifiable.”
…
Since 2015, Texas law enforcement agencies have been legally required to send the attorney general’s office reports on any shooting in which an officer was hit or shot someone within 30 days (Bleiberg 1).
Dean’s mother has said she needs to hear the truth, for better or for worse. She also said a police detective initially told her that her son didn’t pull over right away and when he exited the car, he walked toward the officer, who then shot him.
“Things just don’t add up. He knows not to get out of a car when he’s pulled over. And people said they saw the police officer pull him (Michael) out of the car,” she said.
The Temple Police Department didn’t release information that someone was killed in an officer-involved shooting until the afternoon of Dec. 3. When questioned as to why this was omitted from the initial news release after Dean had already been declared dead, spokesman Chris Christoff said the incident occurred in public, “meaning that the vehicle had the potential of being easily recognizable. We wanted an opportunity to notify Dean’s family prior to releasing the information to the public.”
The officer-involved shooting also wasn’t listed on LexisNexis Community Crime Map, which is what the Temple Police Department uses to inform the public of incidents in the neighborhood.
The shooting marked the most recent high-profile instance of allegations of excessive force and police brutality against the Temple Police Department. Aside from Dean’s killing last week … , Stephen Gayle, a 40-year-old mentally ill Black man, was killed in 2017 after a struggle with police. “Multiple witnesses claimed to Channel 6 News that the officers beat the man,” the local NBC affiliate reported at the time.
“The cop, he got out the car, he body-slammed [Gayle] and put him up in the car,” one witness told Channel 6 about Gayle. “Then [the officer] took him out. He was screaming for his mom, and then he died.”
Further complicating matters is DeCruz’s violent past as a police officer. He was named in an excessive force lawsuit for his actions surrounding the apprehension of a teenage suspect in 2017. DeCruz and his partner at the time were accused of intentionally running over a 15-year-old boy and leaving him under their squad car while it idled for 10 minutes and burned the 15-year-old boy’s body. The teenager’s mother filed the lawsuit that specifically named DeCruz and blamed him and his partner for third-degree burns to her son’s “torso, thighs and pelvis while pinned beneath the running vehicle.”
Police reportedly spun the narrative to say that the teenager was hurt while fleeing an attempted home invasion with other teens. Either way, the damning report paints a picture of DeCruz’s possible preferred policing tactics of being a judge, jury and executioner instead of allowing justice to take its proper course in a court of law.
This is America (Wright 1-3).
Carmen DeCruz
Family and friends of Michael Dean say they are hopeful after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted for the murder of George Floyd.
Dean was shot and killed by former Temple PD officer Carmen DeCruz during a traffic stop in December 2019. The loss is still fresh for the Dean family.
”It’s not a good feeling to know that one of your family members, close family member’s life was taken by someone that is supposed to serve and protect his community. It hurts bad,” said Jeremy Dean, Michael's brother.
Dean's loved ones and the community say they are still fighting for justice.
”This person, who would give you the shirt off his back even if he didn’t have another shirt to put on, he was a warm, kindhearted person that would help you out in any was possible," said Jeremy.
The Dean family says they understand the pain George Floyd's family feels.
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”If you're looking at the time frame that justice was served in this case and the time frame that justice has not been served in Michael's case, that just stings, very much so,” said Terris Goodwin, a close family friend of Dean.
The Dean family hopes Chauvin's conviction is just the beginning and leads to more convictions and accountability for officers that commit similar crimes.
”Seeing that this guy has been convicted and hopefully sentenced properly, hopefully they can use this. This is a prime example of a bad cop,” said Jeremy.
”Continue to keep the Dean family in your prayers and be ready to advocate and ask the difficult questions as to why Michael Dean’s murderer is still out walking free at this moment in time,” said Goodwin
DeCruz has been charged with manslaughter. He is scheduled to appear in court on June 10 [2021]. He is currently out on bond (Schindler 1-2).
Due to a backlog of cases not tried during the pandemic, DeCruz’s trial will not occur in 2021.
Works cited:
Bleiberg, Jake. “Report: Texas Cop Shot Man in ‘Altercation of Some Sort’.” AP News, February 5, 2020. Net. https://apnews.com/article/99e5b8938a9234fdbaeecb6383d300b0
Coen, Ross. “MICHAEL DEAN (1991-2019).” Black Past, August 13, 2020. Net. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/people-african-american-history/michael-dean-1991-2019/
Crown, Rosemond. “Family Says No Progress Made One Year after Temple Officer Kills Michael Dean.” KWTX, December 2, 2020. Net. https://www.kwtx.com/2020/12/03/family-says-no-progress-made-one-year-after-temple-officer-kills-michael-dean/
Schindler, Adam. “Michael Dean's Family Hopeful after Seeing Derek Chauvin Convicted of George Floyd's Murder.” KXXV, April 21, 2021. Net. https://www.kxxv.com/hometown/bell-county/michael-deans-family-hopeful-after-seeing-derek-chauvin-convicted-for-george-floyds-murder
Wright, Bruce C. T. “Why Was Michael Dean Killed? Police Confirm He Was Unarmed When Cop Shot Him in the Head.” NEWSONE, January 2, 2020. Net. https://newsone.com/3898035/michael-dean-unarmed-temple-texas-police-shooting/
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