Teenager with ties to March double murder arrested in police shooting in northeast Dallas, police say

One of the people police say was in a stolen vehicle that rammed two patrol cars in northwest Dallas on Thursday, prompting officers to shoot one of the juvenile occupants, faces murder charges in connection with a double homicide in south Dallas earlier this year.

Dallas police officers working undercover Thursday were alerted to the vehicle’s location by a Flock license plate reader and found it in a carport at the Lakeside Apartments in the 9600 block of Golf Lakes Trail, near North Central Expressway and Greenville Avenue. As uniformed officers approached the vehicle around 1:20 p.m., it sped off and crashed into two patrol cars, Police Chief Eddie García said at a news conference Thursday.

Police arrested three people in the vehicle: Deantae Moore, 19; Damon Price, 21; and Eric Lampkin-Scarborough, 17. It was not immediately clear Friday afternoon if the three had attorneys. A fourth person — who police said could not provide personal information — eluded officers after the crash.

Moore had a felony warrant out for his arrest in connection with the shooting deaths of two people: Camren Stacy and Kamari Smith-Capps. On March 22 at about 9:15 p.m., Stacy and Smith-Capps, both 18, were shot and later found dead in the parking lot of a convenience store in the 3800 block of Dixon Avenue, an officer wrote in an affidavit for the arrest warrant against Moore.

The names of the officers who fired their weapons were not released. None of the officers were injured, police said. A news conference scheduled for Monday will provide an update on the shooting, which marks the third time in the last month that police officers have shot people in Dallas.

Teenager killed in double murder ‘tried to help,’ says mother

Holly Capps, Smith-Capps’ mother, said The Dallas Morning News Friday that she was “overjoyed” when she heard of the arrest in the case. The slow trickle-down of news from police since March was wearing on her, she said, and compounding her grief.

“I struggle every day just to want to live,” Capps said in a tearful phone interview. “He was everything I had, literally everything I had and everything I lived for.”

Surveillance footage shows Smith-Capps driving a vehicle into the parking lot, parking it and appearing to signal someone to approach. Two “unknown suspects” get into the front and back seats of the vehicle. Shortly after, Stacy, who was in the back seat, is seen exiting the vehicle and falling to the ground while two people exit the vehicle and run away from the scene, according to the affidavit.

In a press release a day after the shooting, police said the “suspects” fled the scene on Dixon Avenue, adding that no description of them was available at the time.

Messages received through Smith-Capps’ Instagram account indicated that the 18-year-old had arranged to meet in the parking lot with someone who wanted to sell him “Glock switches,” the affidavit said.

A “switch,” as they are colloquially called, is a small device that can be attached to certain handguns to cause a semi-automatic weapon to fire rapidly. Possession of these devices is illegal in most cases because handguns equipped with switches are classified as machine guns under the National Firearms Act, according to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Police obtained Instagram data from the other user, who was identified as Moore by a Dallas officer who formerly worked in the department’s gang unit, according to the affidavit. Police later obtained a warrant for Moore’s arrest, which remained open until his arrest Thursday.

Capps said she didn’t know about the parking lot meeting or where the counters came from, but she had a theory about why her son was looking for extra income: She had lost her job a few weeks ago and finances were tight. Her son had a strong work ethic that belied his young age, she added, and he tried to pitch in wherever he could.

“He was a good boy, but he wasn’t perfect,” Capps said. Although she admitted she didn’t know his intentions, she later said she was sure her son was trying to help him. “I know that was most likely his state of mind.”

Charges filed after accident on Thursday

According to records, Price and Moore were still in Dallas County custody Friday afternoon.

Following Thursday’s accident, Price was charged with unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, two counts of aggravated assault on an officer, fleeing police on foot and violating probation for prior drug manufacturing or delivery, the news release said.

A police spokesman confirmed that Lampkin-Scarborough was shot by police officers. He remained in hospital Friday and will face charges of possession of a prohibited weapon and fleeing custody on foot upon his release, a news release said.

Editorial columnist Sharon Grigsby contributed to this article.