Video seems to show man shot while walking away

DALLAS — A police dashcam video released five months after a Texas officer shot a black man appears to show the man walking away as the officer fired, and the man’s lawyer says he was not a threat.

David Collie was shot in the back, leaving him paralyzed, lawyer Nate Washington said Wednesday. Police said at the time of the July encounter that a Fort Worth officer fired twice, striking Collie “once in the lower torso.”

The officer and a Tarrant County sheriff’s deputy with him were offduty at the time and working a security detail at an apartment complex, Washington said.

Police were searching for two shirtless black men who they believed had committed a robbery near a gas station, Washington said. Authorities said in a news release they issued at the time that Collie pulled a box cutter from his pocket and pointed it at the officers.

Collie was charged with aggravated assault on a public servant, but a grand jury declined to indict him.

Fort Worth police on Wednesday defended the actions of the officers, who they have not named. Sgt. Marc Povero said in a statement that Collie failed to comply with commands to stop and that he appeared to point a silver object at the deputy, consistent with earlier reports by the robbery victim that a suspect flashed a silver handgun. Washington said Collie was not involved in the robbery. A box cutter found nearby didn’t belong to Collie, Washington said.

The shooting occurred late at night, and darkness obscures Collie’s actions, but the video seems to show him pointing in another direction as he walks away, and it is not clear if there is anything in his hand.