One man is dead and another is under police watch at Parkland Hospital after being shot by Dallas police officers following a late night carjacking and robbery.
At about 9 p.m. Wednesday, two men reportedly robbed a church pastor and stole his car in front of the Deez Smoke 4 Less tobacco store in the 2900 block of Esters Road in Irving.
The pastor told NBC 5 Thursday that the two men were walking out of the store while he was walking in. Once he came back out of the store, the two men approached him, threatened him with a gun, took his keys and stole his vehicle. The victim did not want his name to be used in this report.
What the pair did not know was that the stolen car was equipped with a Lo-Jack tracking device, and that allowed Dallas police to locate the car at the Lombardy Plaza shopping center in the 3000 block of Lombardy Lane, north of Love Field.
According to Dallas police, officers found the two suspects in the car talking to a third man who was standing outside the vehicle. Officer Timothy Payovich approached and, according to the Dallas police, "began giving loud verbal commands for the two suspects to show their hands."
The man outside of the vehicle complied and laid down on the ground as Sgt. Roger Rudloff arrived as backup.
Suddenly, the driver of the vehicle put the car in reverse and accellerated rapidly toward the officers, police said.
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Both Rudloff and Payovich attempted to move out of the way but the driver followed as a third officer, Jason Crow, arrived at the scene. All three officers, "fearing for their lives ... fired their weapons," according to police.
Once the vehicle stopped moving, both occupants were taken into custody. The men were later identified as Luis Escalante, 23, and James Cipriano, 37.
Escalante was later pronounced dead at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas. Cipriano is in stable condition with a gunshot wound to his lower back. He is expected to survive.
None of the officers were injured in the incident.
