Dallas cop who lied about videotaped shooting of mentally ill man has been arrested

Remember the Dallas cop that said he fired upon a mentally ill man because the man was coming at him and his partner with a knife, but a nearby home’s security camera shows that the suspect was standing still when gunned down?

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That officer has now been fired and has been criminally charged:

The police officer who shot a mentally ill man in a disputed incident caught on tape has been fired and charged with felony aggravated assault, police said Thursday.

Police Chief David Brown apologized for the actions of the officer, who had been on administrative leave following the Oct. 14 shooting.

“Officers are not above the law,” Brown said at a news conference. “We as a police department are not going to look the other way.”

Officer Cardan Spencer wrote in a police report that he shot Bobby Gerald Bennett last week after the 52-year-old man lunged at him and another officer with a knife. But video captured by a neighbor’s surveillance camera shows Bennett didn’t appear to move toward the officers before he was shot and crumpled to the ground.

Officer Spencer’s partner also lied about the incident in his police report, but this article does not address whether he is still on the police force, or if he may face charges of his own.

This has been a really bad couple of weeks for officer-involved shootings, hasn’t it?

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