‘We already feel the void:’ 18-year-old killed, 5 others injured in Deep Ellum shooting early Sunday

Updated at 4:05 pm: Revised to include a testimony from Dallas Police Chief Eddie García.

Police said one person was killed and five others injured, including one life-threatening, following a shooting early Sunday in Deep Ellum. One man was arrested, but it is unclear whether he is linked to the murders and injuries.

Sunday’s mass shooting was one of several recent violent crimes in the popular entertainment district east of downtown as the crowds return after losing weight during the pandemic. Other incidents included a man who collided a truck with a pedestrian, a Dallas police horse, and a car; a knife stabber and gunmen who shoot two people.

Dallas Police Chief Eddie García told The Dallas Morning News that the department has no tolerance for the violence. Police have closed several streets in Deep Ellum in response to the shooting, he said, and the department plans to dispatch additional officers to the area Sunday night.

Managers will be “in constant contact” with officials, he added.

“We do not have it!” he said in a text.

At around 12:40 p.m. on Sunday, near the intersection of North Malcolm X Boulevard and Main Street, multiple gunshots were fired, where an 18-year-old man identified as Kenneth Walker and five others were shot dead, police said .

Walker was taken to a hospital where he later died. A second victim, a 19-year-old who was not identified, was in critical condition.

Dallas police officers are investigating the scene after one person was killed and five others injured in Deep Ellum on Sunday.(MetroVideo)

The other four, all female, ages 30, 25, 21 and 15, had injuries that were not considered life-threatening, police said.

Officers reacted to Deep Ellum after hearing gunfire, Dallas police said. Once there, police said, officers found 18-year-old Lathaniel Pearson who was “aiming with a gun”.

Pearson dropped the gun and ran away from the officers, but was caught and arrested on charges of grievous bodily harm with a fatal weapon and evasion of arrest, police said. At the same time, several guns could be heard firing in the area, the police said.

It is unclear whether the shots fired by Pearson were linked to Walker’s death or the injuries to the other five people, police said.

Further details of the investigation were not disclosed.

“A silent burst of energy”

Walker was the oldest of three and he valued spending time with his siblings before his death on Sunday, his mother Jessica Palacios said.

Palacios said her son, named “KJ,” was known to be smart, sharp, and handsome, and she said he was respectable for any adult he came in contact with.

“KJ was a silent burst of energy,” said Palacios in a text. “It was magnetic. Although his physical being was taken from us prematurely, his beautiful spirit will now flow around us forever. “

Walker graduated from Duncanville High School with a degree in business administration, where he took advanced courses and had plans to one day build his own business empire, loved ones said.

Palacios said Walker always tried to provide for his family and wished he could “give his mother the best he could do as a son.” He was loved by all of his family and so many others, she added.

“Please just send us prayers,” she said. “We love you, KJ, and we already sense the void your presence once filled.”

Crime in Deep Ellum

In late August, a man speeding around in a pickup truck was arrested for drunk and bumped his truck into a pedestrian, a Dallas police horse and a car. About a week after that incident, a man was fatally stabbed to death near Main Street and the Good Latimer Expressway and the killer fled the scene.

At least two people were shot dead in Deep Ellum in mid-July when several gunmen opened fire near the Main and Crowdus streets. The police have not released any information about any arrests related to the shooting.

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