Shuan Lucas, the Wolfe City Police Officer who shot Jonathan Price, has been charged with murder, the Texas Rangers said in a statement. “At approximately 8:24 p.m. on Oct. 3rd, 2020, Wolfe City Police Officer Shaun Lucas responded to a disturbance call at the 100 block of Santa Fe Street for a possible fight in progress,” the statement read. “Officer Lucas made contact with a man, later identified as 31-year-old Jonathan Price, who was reportedly involved in the disturbance. Officer Lucas attempted to detain Price, who resisted in a non-threatening posture and began walking away. Officer Lucas deployed his TASER, followed by discharging his service weapon striking Price. EMS was notified and Price was transported to Hunt Regional Hospital, where he later died. The preliminary investigation indicates that the actions of Officer Lucas were not objectionably reasonable. The Texas Rangers have charged Officer Lucas with the offense of Murder and booked him into the Hunt County Jail. …
...
Price’s family and a witness said Price had tried to break up a domestic argument between a couple inside the store. The dispute continued outside the store, at which point police arrived. Police reportedly used a taser on Price before shooting him.
Price’s mother, Marcella Louis, told WFAA that she rushed to the gas station after learning her son had been shot. “They wouldn’t let me get close to my baby,” she said. “I just wanted to hold his hands. They wouldn’t let me do that… They took my son from me. They took my baby.”
…
Lee Merritt, a lawyer representing Price’s family who’s also been involved in other high-profile civil rights and police brutality cases, wrote on Instagram Sunday: “Yesterday [Price] noticed a man assaulting a woman and he intervened. When police arrived, I’m told, he raised his hands and attempted to explain what was going on. Police fired tasers at him and when his body convulsed from the electrical current, they ‘perceived a threat’ and shot him to death.” On Monday, he [Merritt] appeared near the site of the shooting with Price’s family, and called for the officer involved to be arrested. “He deserves justice because he was a human citizen who was not breaking the law and he was gunned down by police officers,” he said.
According to reports, Price was a beloved figure in Wolfe City, a town of about 1,500 located about an hour northeast of Dallas. He’d been a star athlete at the city’s public schools growing up and had returned to his hometown, where he worked as a trainer and for the city’s public works department. Merritt wrote that “he was known as a hometown hero. Motivational speaker, trainer, professional athlete and community advocate — he was dearly loved by so many.”
Will Middlebrooks, a childhood friend of Price’s and an ex-professional baseball player, posted a photo of Price on Facebook along with the note: “See this face? This is the face of one of my childhood friends. The face of my first ever favorite teammate. The face of a good man. But unfortunately it’s the face of a man whose life was taken away from him last night with his hands in the air, while a small town East Texas cop shot him dead. Why? Bc he was trying to break up a fight at a gas station… for some reason he was singled out. I’ll let you do the math. There’s no excuses this time…’he was a criminal’… Nope, not this time. ‘He resisted arrest, just comply with the cops’.. Nope that one doesn’t work this time either. This was purely an act of racism. Period. So, for all of you that think this is all bullshit, you need to check yourselves.”(Blistein 1-3).
"My friend tried to break up a fight between a man and a woman at a gas station, bc that’s how we were raised. Don’t put your hands on a woman. Yet he was singled out in the fight, shot and killed... unarmed... no weapon... just his skin color," Middlebrooks posted on Twitter (Midkiff 1).
The entire interaction between Texas police officer Shaun Lucas and the 31-year-old Black man he shot and killed Saturday was captured in police body camera footage, according to the arrest affidavit released by investigators Wednesday.
Lucas, who is white, is facing murder charges following the incident at a gas station in Wolfe City. The investigation is being handled by the Texas Rangers.
Officer Shaun Lucas
Based on the bodycam footage, which has not been released to the public, the [police arrest] affidavit says that when Lucas arrived at the scene, Price greeted him and came "very close to Officer Lucas, asking 'You doing good?' multiple times while extending his hand in a handshake gesture."
"Price apologized for broken glass on the ground and stated someone had tried to 'wrap me up,'" the affidavit said.
Lucas told investigators that he thought that Price was intoxicated and attempted to detain Price, but Price allegedly stated, "I can't be detained," the affidavit said.
The officer then tried to detain Price "by grabbing his arm and using verbal commands," but was unsuccessful, the affidavit said. He then produced his Taser, according to the affidavit.
Lucas warned Price to comply or he would use his Taser, and when Price walked away, the officer fired the Taser, the affidavit said.
While being tased, Price walked toward Lucas and tried to reach for the weapon, at which point the officer took out his service weapon and fired four times, according to the affidavit.
Price died later that night at the hospital.
The affidavit concluded that the officer "did then and there intentionally and knowingly cause the death of Price by discharging a firearm."
Lucas was arrested Monday night on murder charges and held on $1 million bond.
…
In a statement on Saturday's shooting, [Lucas’s attorney Robert] Rogers said, “Officer Lucas only discharged his weapon in accordance with Texas law when he was confronted with an aggressive assailant who was attempting to take his Taser."
"It's just -- this is just -- I can't wrap my brain around this," Lucas' stepfather told Dallas ABC affiliate WFAA Tuesday. "He's a good kid. He's devastated. He's devastated for everybody involved" (Pereira, Nathanson, and Scholz 1-2).
According to Texas Monthly, Price was raised by his single mom in Wolfe City, a small town northeast of Dallas. He was a high-school football star and went on to play at Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene before working as a personal trainer in Dallas. He eventually moved back home and worked for the city government. He was known for giving inspirational talks to local athletes and working with kids, earning him the nickname Coach Price.
“I just grew up knowing him as the star athlete who was going to do big things someday,” an acquaintance told TM. “He was known as this stand-up guy who beat the odds.” Another friend called him a “pillar of the community.”
…
Friends and family say that witnesses told them Price was there breaking up a domestic dispute. “The situation was resolved before law enforcement arrived, according to witnesses,” [Attorney] Merritt said. “Why this officer still felt the need to Tase and shoot Jonathan is beyond comprehension.” Witnesses also say that Price was shot in the back, but Texas Rangers haven’t commented on the specifics of where Lucas shot him.
“My son got life. I want him to get life,” Price’s mother, Marcella Louis, said of the charges against Lucas at a vigil in Wolfe City on Monday. “I want to see him have justice, to feel the pain I’m feeling.
Lucas has been placed on administrative leave. He was booked into the Hunt County jail on a $1 million bond; he is now being held in the Collin County jail. A full autopsy report of Price’s body is expected in six to eight weeks (Read 1-2).
A
Fresno [California] family is pleading for people to remember the
Texas man shot and killed a month ago by a rookie police officer in a
small town.
"He was quiet," said Raylisa Price,
whose brother, Jonathan, was gunned down Oct. 3. "He wasn't a
mean person or violent. (He) just kept to himself, doing his thing."
Jonathan
Price lived and died in northeast Texas, but he had two sisters, a
nephew, and a niece in Fresno.
"All right," said
family and friends as they released balloons in his honor. "This
is for Jonathan Price. Say his name. Jonathan Price."
The
name and the spirit of Jonathan Price flew across three states
Tuesday as family members and friends marked his 32nd birthday.
The
manner of his death made no sense to Jonathan's sister, Raylisa, who
talked to Action News from her home in Fresno on her brother's
birthday.
"He was just kind-hearted, like just
soft-spoken," she said. "I've never seen him mad. Even if
he was mad at something, he was just quiet, just mellow."
…
Raylisa
Price thinks the 22-year-old may have been the only police officer in
town who didn't know her brother, but Jonathan treated him like any
other law enforcement.
"Greeted
him, wanted to shake his hand, asking him how he's doing, that's just
how he was." she said. "So to tase him and shoot him up
like that, I'm just shocked."
Lucas
said he tried to detain Jonathan and when he struggled, he fired four
shots -- deadly shots.
At
Jonathan's funeral, family members said we should all strive to be
like the always smiling city employee, fitness trainer, and mentor to
dozens of kids.
…
His
sister wants to make sure people in the Central Valley and across the
country remember her brother, and she wants Lucas to languish and be
forgotten in prison.
"Because
if my brother has to die and we can never see him again, he should
never be able to see his family again," Raylisa Price said.
A
grand jury convened Oct. 30 to decide what charges, if any, Lucas
should face in court.
For
now, he's in jail on a $1 million bail (Hoggard
1).
The white Texas police officer who tased and fatally shot Jonathan Price at a small town gas station this month is allegedly known by a number of locals for his overly-aggressive policing tactics.
Shaun Lucas, the Wolfe City police officer in question, had been on the force for less than six months before carrying out the deadly arrest of Price, an unarmed 31-year-old Black man.
Before Price’s shooting, however, Lucas had already cemented his reputation as an overzealous rookie with a tendency to harass the town’s Black residents, a number of locals claim, according to an investigation by the Washington Post.
In the weeks following Lucas’ arrival in the small Texas town of 1,400 people, residents used social media to warn their neighbors about the “new cop.” The 22-year-old police officer, locals complained, was “another mean police officer” who pulled over “everything that moves at night.”
“Where the hell did he come from?” Veronica Brown, a Wolfe City resident, told the Washington Post. “He is the worst cop Wolfe City ever had.”
Lucas arrested Brown’s 65-year-old cousin, she claimed, after the young police officer mistakenly suspected her elderly relative was intoxicated due to a limp.
“He thought I was drunk,” the man, James Alton Brown, told the Post. “So he took me to jail.”
The charges were ultimately dropped, the newspaper reported.
Other Black residents, too, questioned Lucas’ overzealous approach to law enforcement — and went out of their way to avoid him.
…
“The officer, at some point, told Jon that he was going to be detained — Jon walked away,” [Attorney Lee] Merritt added. “He did not want to be detained. He was not interested in being detained, at which point Jon was tased."
After Lucas tased Price, he opened fire, letting off four rounds.
“The taser did not take Jon to the ground but it did cause his body to tense up and convulse from the shock,” Merritt explained. “While he was tensing up and convulsing from the shock he was shot.”
One bullet struck Pierce’s upper torso. Three other bullets were found lodged in an ice freezer at the gas station, according to the Post. Price was later pronounced dead at Hunt Regional Hospital. Body camera footage of the incident hasn’t yet been made available to the public (Geiger 1-2).
Blerim
Elmazi,
one of Price’s family attorneys, denied Price could have attempted
to grab the stun gun because he was not close enough.
“The
situation already was calm. There was no problem” when Lucas
arrived,” said Elmazi. “Officer Lucas completely and unreasonably
escalated a situation when there really was no situation to begin
with” (Gray
1).
The former Wolfe City police officer charged with the murder of 31-year-old Jonathan Price has pleaded not guilty. He remains in custody at the Collin County Jail in lieu of a $1 million bond.
…
An interim hearing to receive discovery evidence is set for May 4 (Cutshall 1).
[Paste the following on Google to watch an ABC produced video of initial coverage of the aftermath of the shooting]
What we know about the fatal police shooting of Jonathan ...
Works cited:
Blistein, Jon. “Jonathan Price Allegedly Tried to Break Up a Fight. Texas Police Killed Him.” Rolling Stone, updated October 6, 2020. Net. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/jonathan-price-police-killing-wolfe-city-texas-1071219/
Cutshall, Amanda. “Former Officer Pleads Not Guilty to Jonathan Price Shooting Death.” eExtraNews, April 7, 2021. Net. https://eparisextra.com/crime/former-officer-pleads-not-guilty-to-jonathan-price-shooting-death/
Geiger, Dorian. “Texas Cop Accused in Fatal Shooting of Black Man at Gas Station Has ‘History of Racism,’ Lawyer Says.” Oxygen, October 14, 2020. Net. https://www.oxygen.com/crime-news/jonathan-price-shooting-cop-shaun-lucas-has-history-of-racism
Gray, Madison J. “Jonathan Price Case: Ex-Cop Charged with Murder Harassed Black Residents.” BET, October 13, 2020. Net. https://www.bet.com/news/national/2020/10/13/jonathan-price-wolfe-city-shaun-lucas-police-killing.html
Hogard, Corin. “Fresno Family Pleads for Outrage, Justice after Texas Brother Killed by Police Officer.” ABC30, November 8, 2020. Net. https://abc30.com/fresno-family-jonathan-price-texas-man-killed/7715788/
Midkiff, Sarah. Jonathan Price Was a “Hometown Hero.” Police Shot & Killed Him for Trying To Break Up a Fight.” Refinery29, updated October 6, 2020. Net. https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2020/10/10074446/jonathan-price-police-shooting-wolfe-city-texas-murder-charge
Pereira, Ivan; Nathanson, Marc; and Scholz, James. “Bodycam Footage Suggests Jonathan Price Shooting Was Unwarranted, Affidavit Says.” ABC News, October 7, 2020. Net. https://abcnews.go.com/US/bodycam-footage-suggests-jonathan-price-shooting-unwarranted-affidavit/story?id=73484654
Read, Bridget. “Everything We Know about the Killing of Jonathan Price.” The Cut, October 8, 2020. Net. https://www.thecut.com/2020/10/everything-we-know-about-the-killing-of-jonathan-price.html
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