Christian Taylor, a 19-year-old unarmed black man, was fatally shot 4 times by a white police officer in training in Arlington, Texas. Security footage showed Taylor vandalizing cars at a dealership by jumping on them and attempting to break a windshield. When police arrived in response to a burglary call, a confrontation ensued inside the building that led the officer to open fire with his gun while a second officer used a taser. Taylor was an athlete who had been devout in his faith recently, though his father speculated that too much drinking may have led to the incident. His family has called for more details on what exactly prompted the shooting.

1. Questions abound in police shooting death of black Texas
teen | Reuters
DALLAS Texas police on Sunday were trying to figure out what prompted a black teenager to smash
his car into an auto dealership, and why a white police officer still in training fatally shot the
unarmed 19-year-old four times.
Christian Taylor became the latest unarmed black man to die at the hands of a white police officer
after officials said he was seen on security surveillance tape vandalizing cars at an auto dealership in
Arlington.
Taylor was shot four times by Arlington police officer Brad Miller, 49, who was still undergoing
training with the department, Arlington police chief Will Johnson said on Saturday. The Tarrant
County Medical Examiner's Office found Taylor had gunshot wounds to the neck, chest and
abdomen.
But Johnson did not explain what led to what he described as a confrontation inside dealership
building that led Miller to open fire on Taylor, while a second police officer used a Taser. The
officers were not wearing body cameras.
Taylor's brother Joshua, 23, said the family wanted details of what happened, calling the information
from the police "blurry."
"Until we get concrete facts, we won't know what happened," Joshua Taylor told Reuters in a phone
interview.
"He was a really good guy. He was family-oriented. He was an A student and had he everything
going for him," Taylor said, adding that his brother had "recently given his life to God."
"He was happy, everything was great. He was trying to touch people's lives," Joshua Taylor said.
His father Adrian Taylor said he had no idea what led Christian, a college football player at Angelo
State University, to smash a car though the window of the dealership on Friday.
"You know, it could have been too much drinking. He could have been wrong place at the wrong
time," Adrian Taylor told the CBS Dallas TV affiliate, CBS 11.

2. Taylor's death came just ahead of the one-year anniversary of the fatal shooting of teenager Michael
Brown at the hands of a white officer in Ferguson, Missouri, that ignited protests across U.S. cities.
On a Twitter account appearing to belong to Christian Taylor, the teenager commented about police
violence. "Police taking black lives as easy as flippin a coin, with no consequences smh," says one
message posted in December, using the acronym for shaking my head.
Less than two weeks ago, he posted; "I don't wanna die too younggggg."
Miller was placed on leave after the shooting and Johnson said he had asked the Federal Bureau of
Investigation to help investigate Taylor's death. The FBI is expected to respond to the request on
Monday, an Arlington police spokeswoman said.
The two police officers were responding to a call from a security company on Friday about a
burglary at the dealership in Arlington.
Police said Taylor drove his own car or a car belonging to his family into the dealership.
Edited portions of security surveillance video released to the media shows Taylor jumping on top of
cars parked outside dealership and attempting to stomp out a front windshield. It does not show the
shooting or the moments leading up to it.
Johnson said when the officers arrived they found Taylor had driven a vehicle into the front of the
building. He ran to another part of the building, where he tried to escape through a locked door.
Taylor had a prior arrest involving the unauthorized possession of prescription painkillers, police
said. He was sentenced to six months deferred-adjudication probation in December.
Joshua Taylor described the incident as "normal teenage stuff" and said Christian had "turned his life
around."
(Reporting by Marice Richter in Dallas and Laila Kearney in New York; Editing by Jill Serjeant and
Lisa Shumaker)