On Sunday morning, life changed forever for Dallas Police Chief David Brown. Understandably, both Chief Brown and the entire Dallas metropolitan area are still reeling about what happened, amazingly, just three days ago.
Police Chief Son’s Known Mental Illness Issues
The police chief’s son was known to have mental health issues. His live-in girlfriend (and the mother of the Chief’s grandson), Misti Conaway, told Lancaster cops when they responded to her domestic dispute call earlier in the day that David Brown Jr., 27, was bipolar. (She also told them that he had taken drugs that day, and was acting as if he were on PCP.)
School authorities already knew that David Brown Jr. had hit his 10-year-old son, and the local authorities were investigating the boy’s black eye as suspected child abuse.
Seven hours before the tragedy, David Brown Jr. was seen brandishing a gun at the apartment complex swimming pool as he danced around, humming to himself, wearing only boxer shorts and sunglasses.
Lancaster Cops Interviewed David Brown Jr. and Left Him There
When Misti Conaway called the cops, they went to the scene and left with Conaway and her two sons.
They interviewed David Brown Jr., and they checked the apartment. Today, these cops stand by their story that he seemed fine to them, not a danger to himself or others at the time. He wasn’t arrested. He wasn’t taken in as an involuntary commitment.
Their actions are recorded on a dash cam video. Reportedly, you can hear Brown yelling about the kids not reading their Bible …. One last thing before they left: they left a voice mail message for Chief Brown, telling him they’d stopped by his son’s place and everything was fine.
David Brown Jr. Shot and Killed Two Before Dying in Gun Battle with Police
Within hours, David Brown Jr. took a handgun (assumedly the same one he’d been threatening folk with at the pool) and grabbed a rifle, and shot and killed a man driving into the complex with his girlfriend and two young kids, Jeremy Jontae McMillian, 23.
Brown Jr. then fatally shot Lancaster Police Officer Craig Shaw, 37. It’s no surprise that the next thing to happen in this sequence of events was David Brown Jr. dying in a shootout with police in the parking lot of the apartment complex.
It was Father’s Day. Chief Brown had been on the job for 2 months.
Today, it’s still national news that the Dallas Police Chief’s son was killed in a gun battle with local police, after killing two men. Chief Brown issued a statement on Tuesday. It was gracious and expressed sincere condolences to both of the victim’s families.
Should Chief Brown Resign?
There’s lots of talk that Chief Brown will resign. However, many see that as the wrong response. Even the girlfriend of slain Jeremy McMillian doesn’t want this: she’s quoted as saying that Brown Jr.’s actions were those of an independent adult, and not to be attributed to the Police Chief.
What About those Lancaster Cops?
Meanwhile, what about those Lancaster cops? One has to wonder why Brown Jr. was left there that day, obviously suffering from some type of mental break — he’d been acting strangely all day.
- Why didn’t they learn about Brown Jr.’s antics at the pool?
- Why didn’t they find the handgun (the girlfriend told them one was there)?
- Why didn’t they take Brown Jr. in for evaluation?
- Was it because they were afraid that Chief Brown would be upset with them?
- They made sure to touch base with the Police Chief by calling him on the phone to tell him about their visit. Why do that?
You gotta wonder if David Brown Jr. would have been left there on Sunday if those two patrolmen weren’t so impressed with his dad being the Top Dog of Dallas Cops.
Let’s hope their actions are fully investigated.
Sincerely condolences to the families of all those who died in this horrible tragedy. Including especially Dallas Police Chief Brown.
If I were McMillian’s family, I would be filing a lawsuit against the Lancaster police department.
And – how did Brown’s son become a cop if he is schizophrenic or bipolar? And how many other children does Brown have that are mentally ill and carry a gun??
A lot of people want to believe that but for Chief Brown being Brown, Jr.’s dad, an arrest would have been made and the murders prevented. The truth is police and the justice system have long been loath to arrest and prosecute domestic violence. In the ancillary issues that have clouded this incident, it has largely been forgotten that seven hours prior to the shootings, Misti Conaway made a frantic call to police and reported not only that she had been battered but that he was waving a gun around. That’s the real story here – why police aren’t required to arrest men who just beat someone, thereby leaving them behind to do it some more or, worse, kill the victim or someone else. It’s not like law enforcement and the courts don’t recognize this pattern of abuse/stalking/threats/battery/murder, so what is the excuse, and why is it that after the first round of media, you rarely even see anyone mention that a woman was beaten, called for help, and they failed to arrest the man.