{"id":181505,"date":"2025-08-28T04:21:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-28T04:21:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/181505\/"},"modified":"2025-08-28T04:21:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T04:21:11","slug":"dallas-family-alleges-excessive-force-after-police-shoot-man-in-mental-health-crisis-during-swat-standoff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/181505\/","title":{"rendered":"Dallas family alleges excessive force after police shoot man in mental health crisis during SWAT standoff"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paul Benes says his 911 call for help during his younger brother’s mental health crisis ended in tragedy<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“It was a medical call, and it kept escalating, escalating,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He says Tuesday evening Dallas police came to check on Martin Benes, a local attorney who had been drinking and trying to hurt himself.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dallas Police Chief Comeaux said during a press conference Wednesday morning that officers were called to a house in the 13800 block of Far Hills Dr. Tuesday around 7:40 p.m., when a man was threatening people in the house and was threatening to harm himself. \u00a0<\/p>\n

“They said, ‘can you flick the lights and give us some indication that you’re okay,’ and he did that,” Paul Benes said. “He turned on the porch lights. He flickered them and they basically said, ‘this is pretty good, he’s responsive, if you like we can leave now.'”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Paul Benes says officers left but then returned about 10 minutes later.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“They were like we want to involve SWAT and give them the ability to come and investigate,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dallas SWAT responds to the scene<\/p>\n

Comeaux said when officers arrived at the scene, a woman and a man came out of the house. That’s when the man charged at officers with a knife. Officers retreated, and the man went back inside the house, barricading himself.<\/p>\n

Dallas police then called their SWAT team, which tried to take the man into custody, but Comeaux said the man charged at officers again with the knife. That’s when he was fatally shot by officers, Comeaux said.<\/p>\n

“A man came out of the house and the man charged at officers with a knife, officers were able to retreat from the man,” Comeaux said. “He had an active warrant. A felony warrant for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, family violence.”<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Martin Benes had also been indicted for felony criminal mischief, accused of crashing a vehicle into a house, and was also charged with resisting arrest the same day.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“But he never had a court date, and those cases were most likely going to be dropped,” Paul Benes said.<\/p>\n

He says none of that justified what happened next.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“They went in there fully loaded, machine gun looking things, and they went up there and then all we heard is three shots,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“They tried to use less than lethal force,” Comeaux said. “To take the suspect into custody. At that time, the suspect charged the SWAT officers with a knife and he was then shot.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Family describes tragic end to 911 call<\/p>\n

Paul Benes says his brother died at the scene. He believes the law enforcement involved used excessive force.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“They cornered him like an animal, and he was holding a knife, highly trained individuals and that’s the course of action they chose?” he said. “They should’ve had a de-escalation specialist, some medical professional on board, talking him down instead of going there with group force. How else was it going to end?”\u00a0<\/p>\n

The family now plans to hire an attorney to explore their legal options.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Erin Jones<\/a><\/p>\n

Raised in Richardson, Erin Jones is proud to call North Texas home. Her passion for journalism began in elementary school. For a 5th grade graduation memory book, she was asked what do you want to be when you grow up? She wrote journalist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paul Benes says his 911 call for help during his younger brother’s mental health crisis ended in tragedy.\u00a0…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":181506,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5135],"tags":[5229,1596,29401,517,5488,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-181505","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-dallas","10":"tag-dallas-police-department","11":"tag-mental-health","12":"tag-police-shooting","13":"tag-texas","14":"tag-tx","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115104480194215479","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}