Texas police fatally shot a 15-year-old boy as he was leaving a house party with four other teens in a suburb outside Dallas, authorities said Sunday. The boy, later identified by his family as Jordan Edwards, got into a car with several other teens to head out after a party in Balch Springs on Saturday night when an officer fired multiple shots at the vehicle — one of which was fatal to Edwards, said Lee Merritt, an attorney for the boy’s family.
According to police, the officers were responding around 11 p.m. to a 911 call “reporting several underage kids drunk walking around,” and upon arrival, they heard gunshots and became engaged in an “unknown altercation with a vehicle backing down the street towards the officers in an aggressive manner.” That’s when an officer fired multiple rounds striking Edwards, who was sitting in the front seat, in the head, said Balch Springs Police Chief Jonathan Haber at a press conference on Sunday. He was transported to a local hospital but soon died from his injuries, he said.
The Dallas County Medical Examiner Monday declared Jordan’s death a homicide after confirming that the teen died from a rifle wound to the head. Police have not identified the officer involved, but said the officer is on administrative leave, Haber said. But an attorney for the boy’s family disputes the police account calling it “fabrications” and “false claims,” adding that “the facts will bear out the truth.” “As the family struggles to deal with the pointless murder of their child they now have to face false claims of under-age drinking and fabrications about ‘aggressive’ behavior,” Merritt said in a statement.
