Police officer who shot mentally ill man fired, charged with felony aggravated assault
The Dallas police officer who shot a mentally ill man has been fired. In a police report, Officer Cardan Spencer wrote that he shot Bobby Gerald Bennett last week after he lunged at him and another officer with a knife.
A video captured by a neighbor’s surveillance camera contradicts his story.
Spencer has also been charged with felony aggravated assault.
Joyce Jackson called the police on her 53-year-old son on October 14 because she was afraid he would hurt himself. Her son, Bobby Bennett, is bipolar and schizophrenic. He had been off of his medication for a few months, after his last prescription seemed to knock him out completely. “He can be eating, and then all of a sudden he’s just out,” Jackson told Unfair Park in an interview, “and he’ll have food in his mouth or whatever. That’s over-dosing I think.”
Read more at The Dallas Observer
Bennett was shot four times as he sat in a chair in his mother’s driveway. Officers then rolled him over, placing him in handcuffs. Initially, Bennett faced criminal charges until the surveillance video surfaced contradicting the officer’s story. The charges have sinse been dropped.
Bennett remains hospitalized but is awake and talking.
Thoughts on the charges against Officer Spencer?
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