Dallas airport shooting stemmed from domestic dispute, police say

By Melissa Gray CNN

(CNN) -- Officers shot a man involved in a domestic disturbance outside the Dallas Love Field airport terminal after he rushed one of them, a police spokesman said Friday.

A father was throwing rocks at the mother of his children outside the baggage claim area, Assistant Police Chief Randy Blankenbaker told reporters.

An officer who responded was able to move the woman away, "but the individual came toward him again, and so he discharged his weapon a number of times," Blankenbaker said.

The man was struck several times and was taken to a hospital. Blankenbaker did not release his name or his condition.

The woman was unhurt; police believe no children were present at the time, Blankenbaker said.

Witness Bryan Armstrong said it appeared the man was approaching the officer with a large rock when he was shot in the early-afternoon incident.

The officer told the man to "drop the rock and stop walking," but he continued to approach the officer slowly as people came through the terminal door unaware of what was happening, Armstrong told CNN.

Nine shots can be heard on a video Armstrong posted to Instagram. A woman is crying in the background of the video as someone screams, "Get down!"

After the sound of gunshots, a male voice can be heard shouting, "Stay down, stay down!"

Police said the altercation began at a car that was pulled up to the curb outside the baggage claim doors. The man used large rocks taken from curbside landscaping to break several windows of the car, they said.

Details about who was in the car and why the man and woman were at the airport weren't immediately known.

After the shooting, a big rock was still visible on the car's hood and at least two were on the ground on the car's left side. The driver's side window and rear windshield were smashed in.

The airport remained open throughout the incident, though it did prompt security screening delays, Blankenbaker said.

"During the shooting, we believe there were some folks in the security line who were startled, and so they went through the security line without being checked," he said, "so the airport decided to pull everybody back out of the secure area and recheck them for security purposes."

Within an hour, the airport tweeted that lines through security were "moving fast," but there remained many departure delays.

CNN's Ed Lavandera contributed to this report from Dallas.

TM & © 2016 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved.

Share this article: