By Mike Lee
The Star-Telegram
GRAFORD, Texas — A Palo Pinto County sheriff’s deputy fatally shot a Graford man on Sunday after the man crashed a car into a sheriff’s substation near Possum Kingdom Lake, confronted deputies and lunged at one with a knife, Sheriff Ira Mercer said Monday.
Jacob Wade King, 26, was taken by helicopter ambulance to a Mineral Wells hospital where he was pronounced dead, Mercer said.
The deputy who shot him is on administrative leave while the Texas Rangers investigate.
The incident started about 5:30 p.m. Sunday when King and his girlfriend were driving in her car along Park Road 36 at Possum Kingdom Lake, Mercer said. During an argument, King threw her cellphone out the car window. When she stopped to look for the phone, King slid into the driver’s seat, made a u-turn and left, Mercer said.
A few minutes later, Mercer crashed the car into the back of a patrol car parked outside the substation on Park Road 36. The impact drove the patrol car into the front of the building, Mercer said, and six officers, including sheriff’s deputies and a Brazos River Authority police officer, came out to investigate.
“As they approached, [King] put his left hand behind his back and said, ‘I’ll cut you’,” Mercer said.
King backed up as deputies approached in a semicircle with their guns drawn.
“They kept screaming for him to put the knife down, and one of the deputies saw a knife handle in his hand,” Mercer said. “About that time, the guy takes his hand out from behind his back and takes off after one of the deputies.”
The deputy shot King once in the leg, and twice more in the torso after he kept charging forward, Mercer said. The knife turned out to be a steak knife with most of the blade broken. The girlfriend told investigators that it probably came from her car, Mercer said.
An autopsy was performed Monday, and Rangers were interviewing the deputies and a civilian who was nearby, Mercer said.
Copyright 2008 The Star-Telegram