DALLAS—A police officer charged with murder in the fatal shooting of a man in a small East Texas city was fired Thursday.
A statement from the City of Wolfe said Officer Shaun Lucas, 22, was fired for “his egregious violation” of city and police department policy. The city of about 1,500 people is located about 70 miles northeast of Dallas.
Lucas remained jailed Thursday on $1 million bond.
Jonathan Price, 31, was killed over the weekend after Lucas arrived at a convenience store to check out a report of a fight. In a statement Monday announcing that Lucas had been charged, the Texas Rangers said that Price “resisted in a non-threatening posture and began walking away,” and that the officer’s actions weren’t “reasonable.”
An affidavit released this week said that when Lucas arrived at the convenience store on Oct. 3 he was greeted by Price, who asked the officer “you doing good” several times and extended his hand in a handshake gesture. Price apologized for broken glass on the ground, telling the officer someone had tried “to wrap me up.”
The affidavit says Lucas thought Price was intoxicated and tried to detain him. Price said “I can’t be detained” as Lucas grabbed at his arm and used verbal commands. When Lucas produced a stun gun, Price began to walk away.
After Lucas deployed the stun gun, which wasn’t fully effective, Price walked toward him and appeared to reach out to grab the end of the stun gun, the affidavit said. The affidavit said that Lucas then fired four times, striking Price in the upper torso. Price was later pronounced dead at a hospital.
Lucas had been with the Wolfe City Police Department for a little less than six months when the shooting took place, according to records from the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement. His prior law enforcement experience had been working as a jailer with the Hunt County Sheriff’s Office for about five months.
