Off-Duty Police Officer Mistakes His Own Son For Intruder, Shoots Him

An off-duty police officer in Dallas shot his son in his right forearm after thinking he was an intruder.

According to the authorities, the officer informed police at around 6 p.m. on Oct. 26, Saturday, after the shooting in his home in DeSoto, Texas, a city south of Dallas. The officers responded to the scene to find the victim bleeding from his right forearm. He was then taken to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries. The identities of the officer and his son were withheld.

No arrests have been made and the the DeSoto Police Department wasn't immediately available for comments.

DeSoto Police Public Information Officer Pete Schulte called it an accident and said they are investigating further for any appropriate charges. "If there are any charges that are appropriate later on, they will be forwarded over to the DA’s office for them to make a decision,” he said in a press conference Saturday.

The shooting came close on the heels of of a Fort Worth police officer shooting dead a woman in her own home. The victim, Atatiana Jefferson, was shot by Officer Aaron Dean during an inspection of her home over a phone call from her neighbor notifying about a door left open. Dean has resigned since and is facing murder charges.

In another incident, on Oct. 1, a 72-year-old Dallas homeowner named James Michael Meyer had reportedly shot dead an intruder and went back to sleep nonchalantly. He didn’t call the police as he said he was unsure whether the bullet had struck the man. Meyer told police that when he saw someone trying to gatecrash his storage shade, he grabbed his handgun and stepped outside intending to confront him. He shot the intruder after he had allegedly inched forward with a pickax in his hand. The unidentified man then dropped the pickax and sprinted toward the park behind his property. Meyer said that his wife consulted with an attorney before he called 911 at 7:04 a.m. The police officers arrived at the spot to find the dead man lying face down.