RICHARDSON, Texas -- A 26-year-old with a history of run-ins with police has been charged with capital murder after a Richardson officer was fatally shot Wednesday evening.
Brandon McCall is accused of killing Officer David Sherrard after the 13-year veteran officer responded to a disturbance at an apartment complex.
Richardson police Chief Jimmy Spivey called Sherrard, the first Richardson officer to die in the line of duty, "a brave, tenured police officer."
"It's the hardest day we ever had," he said Thursday morning as officers standing on either side of him fought back tears. "We're not doing well, but I'll tell you this, this is a department of professionals. ... I have every confidence that policing and public safety in Richardson is going to go on just like it does every day."
Sherrard was one of the officers who responded to the disturbance, which was reported about 7 p.m. When police arrived, they found Rene Gamez wounded and began to administer first aid, Spivey said.
As officers tried to enter Gamez's apartment, they were fired upon and Sherrard was shot. Gamez also died of his wounds.
Spivey, saying the Plano Police Department will lead the investigation, did not provide details about what led to the disturbance.
The suspect, McCall, has had other run-ins with authorities in the last decade.
Last year, Dallas police took him to a medical facility for an evaluation. Details of that incident were not available
Also in 2017, he pleaded guilty to a charge of possession of a controlled substance in Collin County and was ordered to serve two years' probation.
The attorney who represented him in that case could not be reached for comment Thursday.
Richardson police arrested him in 2016 on a misdemeanor charge of possession of a controlled substance, records show. He was placed on probation for two years, which would have ended in October 2019.
In Garland, he was arrested in 2009 on a charge of unauthorized use of a vehicle and in 2010 on a drug possession charge.
Sherrard was being mourned Thursday as a loving husband and father, and a steadfast colleague.
"February 7 is day that will forever be marked as the day the Richardson Police Department lost one of the best officers I have ever known," family friend and fellow Richardson Officer Steve Hooten posted on Facebook. "David Sherrard was the police officer you would want to show up at your house under any circumstance. As a fellow officer, he was the type of police officer we want with us on a high risk call. An officer you would never question if he had your back. We never questioned his bravery."
Hooten said Sherrard, who lived in Wylie with his wife and two young daughters, provided comfort when Hooten's family suffered a tragedy.
"He was a friend who, for me, was there when I walked through the worst days of my life," Hooten wrote. "For a year now, he has checked in on me frequently to see how we are doing and to remind me that he still wears his pink Ally's Legacy bracelet at all times."
Sherrard had been injured at least once before while on duty, according to police records.
In 2011, he and another officer were helping a stranded driver when a drunken-driving suspect slammed into Sherrard's squad car while he was inside.
His car was pushed across North Central Expressway before it came to a halt in an HOV lane. He was treated at Medical Center of Plano, which is now Medical City Plano Hospital — where Sherrard was taken after he was shot.
Police said that after McCall fatally wounded Sherrard, they cornered him in the Breckinridge Point apartment complex for an hours-long standoff before he surrendered.
Leslie Smith, who lives in the apartment complex, had just gotten home with her 7-year-old daughter about 7 p.m. when a neighbor walked by and said she had heard a man's muffled screams for help in a nearby apartment.
Smith said the woman told her she thought she heard a gunshot and then silence, which worried her.
Not long after, Smith said the usually quiet neighborhood was swarmed with police as gunshots echoed throughout the complex from an apartment near hers.
"At first it was just a bunch of cops driving around and you couldn't see or hear much of anything," she said Thursday. "But then it was just clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack! And then cops are running around saying, 'Bunker down! Bunker down!' "
Looking through the window of her daughter's second-floor bedroom, Smith sat on a nightstand and watched the standoff, frequently posting Snapchat videos to keep her friends and family updated.
She was recording when authorities carried Sherrard to an ambulance. After hours of listening to police shouting commands at the gunman and the steady pop of gunshots, Smith recorded as the officers finally pulled McCall from the apartment about midnight.
"He was screaming and fighting the whole way down," she said. "He was yelling, 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry! No, please!'"
Her video shows law enforcement officers loading the man into an ambulance while he tried to pull away from them.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott was among many who offered their condolences online.
"The hearts and soul of Texas mourn with you," he said. "Your loss is a loss to all law enforcement and everyone in our great state."
Police departments across the state also expressed their solidarity with the Richardson force.
Sherrard was the first on-duty officer death in the state this year, but the scene was far too reminiscent of recent deadly police shootings across North Texas.
In spring 2016, Euless Officer David Hofer was fatally ambushed while responding to a report of a gunman at a park.
That same month, Fort Worth Officer Matt Pearce was shot several times while pursuing two robbery suspects.
In July 2016, a gunman opened fire on officers protecting protesters in downtown Dallas. Four Dallas officers and a Dallas Area Rapid Transit officer were killed, and nine others were injured.
Last year, a barricaded gunman in Little Elm unleashed a "hail of gunfire" on Detective Jerry Walker and fellow SWAT officers. Walker was the first Little Elm officer to die in the line of duty.
Staff writer Naheed Rajwani contributed to this report.
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