The FBI has been asked to help investigate the death of an unarmed 19-year-old Texas college football player who was shot and killed by an officer during a burglary call at a car dealership, officials said Saturday.
Arlington Police Chief Will Johnson said during a news conference Saturday night that he spoke with the FBI's Dallas field office following the shooting of Christian Taylor, an Angelo State University football player.
He told reporters the move "in no way diminishes my confidence" in his department’s ability to conduct an investigation into the incident.
The police officer involved in the shooting on Friday, Brad Miller, has been placed on administrative leave. Miller was still completing his department field training and had never before fired his weapon in the line of duty, officials said.
Surveillance video released on Saturday showed the moment that Taylor was running around the Arlington, Texas car dealership and jumping on cars in the moments before he was shot and killed, Fox4News.com reported.
Police originally went to the dealership after being contacted by the company which manages security cameras at the facility.
Officers arriving at the scene were advised that someone had driven a car onto the lot, started to damage another car, then drove his own vehicle into the glass front of the showroom. Johnson said Saturday night that Taylor appeared to have kicked out the windshield of a car. Officers had set up a perimeter around the car dealership where the incident occurred.
Officers told Taylor to surrender and lie down on the ground, but he refused, the chief said. They saw him then trying to escape the showroom and pursued him.
According to a police statement, an "altercation" of some kind ensued and Miller shot Taylor.
Miller fired his service weapon four times at Taylor, hitting him at least twice, according to Johnson.
Taylor, who is black, was shot by the white police officer two days before the anniversary of the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, whose death fueled the "Black Lives Matter" movement.
Johnson mentioned the current climate during Saturday's news conference, saying "our nation has been wrestling with the topics of social injustice, inequities, racism and police misconduct" and that his department would "pledge to act in a transparent manner."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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