Dallas Police Officer ‘Executed’ in Premeditated Attack, Officials Say

A police officer in Dallas was fatally shot on Thursday night in what officials described as a premeditated execution.

The officer, Darron Burks, 46, was parked in his patrol vehicle in the Oak Cliff section of the city, southwest of downtown, at around 10 p.m. during a break between assignments when a man approached him on the driver’s side. The man, who officials said appeared to record the encounter on his cellphone, briefly spoke to Officer Burks, then pulled out a handgun and shot him dead.

Two other officers were shot by the suspect while they were checking on Officer Burks, who had not responded to a dispatcher’s attempt to contact him, officials said. Senior Corporal Jamie Farmer, who was shot in the leg, has been released from the hospital. Senior Corporal Karissa David, who was shot in the face, remains in critical but stable condition.

The suspect, identified by officials as Corey Cobb-Bey, 30, fled the scene. After officers pursued him onto an expressway, he got out of his vehicle with a gun, approached the officers and pointed his weapon, the police said. Six officers then fired, fatally shooting him. It was unclear on Saturday what might have motivated the attack.

At a news conference on Friday, Eddie Garcia, the Dallas police chief, said the information the force gathered made it clear that Officer Burks was killed in a targeted attack. “I know that the word ‘ambush’ has been thrown around in the last 24 hours or so,” he said. “That’s not what happened here. Officer Burks was executed.”

For some residents, the brutal manner in which the police said Officer Burks was killed called to mind a 2016 shooting, when a heavily armed sniper gunned down five officers in downtown Dallas during a protest against fatal police shootings. That shooting remains the deadliest single attack on law enforcement since Sept. 11.

“I hate that it had to happen again,” said Taylor Toynes, the founder of For Oak Cliff, the community center where Officer Burks was parked before he was killed.

Officer Burks was a former high school math teacher who had graduated from the police academy in December. He was an alumnus of Paul Quinn College, a historically Black Methodist school in Dallas, according to his page on LinkedIn. There, he played football and served as the president of his fraternity, Omega Psi Phi.

On social media, friends from various stages of his life — including fraternity brothers, football teammates, fellow teachers, former students and classmates — shared their grief. They described him as a man who was dedicated to making a difference in his community and who was proud to have become a police officer.

City flags in Dallas were flown at half-staff on Friday, and hundreds of people gathered for a candlelight vigil at the community center where Officer Burks was killed. Officials including Gov. Greg Abbott and Mayor Eric Johnson of Dallas issued statements of support.

“Dallas has lost a hero,” Mr. Johnson said in his statement.

Mr. Cobb-Bey had expressed problems online with his personal and professional life, and he made a post on Thursday indicating that an “event” was happening on Friday, Chief Garcia said.

In a video that Mr. Cobb-Bey posted to one of his social media accounts earlier this week, he approached officers in an unmarked, parked vehicle and asked, “Is there any problem, officers?”

In some of his other posts, he described himself as a “Moorish American National” and quoted from the holy book of the Moorish Science Temple of America, an obscure religious organization.

Ladarrian Brooks, 39, who identified himself as Mr. Cobb-Bey’s brother, said the news of the shooting and his brother’s death came as a shock to the family.

Mr. Brooks said he had been in regular contact with Mr. Cobb-Bey and had seen him in person as recently as Aug. 21. At that time, he said, nothing seemed off.

“This is a very unfortunate situation, and we pray for all the best for everyone that was involved,” he said.