By Nataly Keomoungkhoun and Valeria Olivares
The Dallas Morning News
DALLAS — Two people were found dead inside an Old East Dallas home Thursday and two Dallas police officers were shot, police say.
The officers were immediately shot at when they arrived around 11 a.m. at a home in the 5300 block of Bonita Avenue, near Henderson Avenue and Central Expressway, police said.
The officers were in stable condition after being taken to a hospital, Chief Eddie Garcia said.
SWAT officers entered the home shortly after 1:30 p.m. and found one male and one female dead inside the home. Police did not say how old they were or release their names. Police also didn’t release the names of the injured officers.
Police did not provide details of what led to the shootings.
Dallas Police Association president Mike Mata said the two officers were shot in the lower legs. But he could not provide more details about what happened. The department is notifying the officers’ families, Mata said.
Garcia praised the fire department for its help Thursday afternoon outside Baylor University Medical Center.
“I would be remiss if I did not point out the amazing work of our fire department who actually provided cover for our police officers to extract our wounded officers out of the scene,” Garcia said. “I can’t thank them enough for that.”
Video from a Ring doorbell posted publicly on NextDoor shows an injured Dallas police officer standing but being held up by two other officers on the front porch of a home. Another officer provides cover for them as they leave the porch.
Patricia Gottschalk, who lives less than half a mile from Bonita Avenue, said the first thing she did after learning what had happened was to prepare in case the shooter approached her house.
She said police were telling neighbors to stay locked in their houses.
But Gottschalk said she still feels the neighborhood is safe and that neighbors know and watch out for each other.
“It’s a fairly quiet residential neighborhood and very up and coming,” Gottschalk said. “There’s a lot of new construction, a lot of renovation being done here. Good neighborhood.”
Harrison Moore, 24, was with his roommate and a few of their friends at his house when he received a text saying police officers had been shot nearby.
“This is the most hectic I’ve seen in the area since living here,” Moore said, adding that he moved in about a year ago.
This is the second time in less than a week that a Dallas police officer has been injured in the line of duty. On Saturday, Officer Mitchell Penton was fatally struck by a suspected drunken driver while he was directing traffic.
Thursday’s incident is near where Dallas police Officer Brian Jackson was killed in the line of duty while responding to a domestic violence call in 2005.
(Dallas Morning News staff writer Brooklyn Cooper contributed to this report.