Unarmed father of 3 shot dead by police after leading high-speed chase
Unarmed father of 3 shot dead by police after leading high-speed chase
An unarmed man shot dead by police on live television on Wednesday afternoon was a 41-year-old father of three who had another baby on the way.
Frank Ernest Shepherd, III of Houston, Texas, led police on a high-speed chase after being pulled over for a traffic stop that ended when he slammed into another vehicle.
He then got out of the car and reached into his backseat before being shot by police.
According to ABC 13, the pursuit began a little after 10am, when Shepherd, 41, peeled off and led a fleet of cars on a chase as he drove on the freeway, across grass medians, through parking lots and even busy intersections.
The entire incident was captured live by a helicopter filming from above.
At one point he called 911 and claimed to have a child in the backseat, which turned out to be untrue.
It lasted roughly 20 minutes before he slammed into a white van and then another car, totaling the front of his car and forcing him to get out of his vehicle.
‘He was given commands to show his hands and come out of the vehicle,’ said Thomas Gilliland, a spokesperson for Harris County Sheriff’s Office.
His father meanwhile fell to his knees and began crying when he heard what happened to his son.
‘I’m looking at it on TV saying ‘why would you run from the law?’ Not knowing it was my nephew,’ said the man’s uncle, Chris Shephard.
‘My sister, his mom, called and told me that they shot and killed him.’
It is still not known why Shepherd, a father of three with another baby on the way, was fleeing from police or what he was reaching for after he crashed his car.
