Dallas cop indicted in fatal shooting

Officer faces aggravated assault charge in death of pregnant woman.

A grand jury has recommended an aggravated assault charge against a Dallas police officer who shot and killed a pregnant woman in a January confrontation involving a stolen car.

The Dallas County district attorney announced Friday that Christopher Hess was indicted on a charge of aggravated assault. The charge is related to the January shooting death of 21-yearold Genevive Dawes and is the first time in 43 years that a Dallas police officer has been indicted for an officer-involved shooting that resulted in death.

Dallas County District Attorney Faith Johnson said at a press conference Friday that her office was committed to taking the case to trial and to investigating officer-involved shootings.

Daryl Washington, a civil rights attorney representing Dawes’ family, said they were hoping for a murder charge to be brought against the officer. Washington also said the family was hoping a second charge would be brought because of the passenger, Virgilio Rosales, Dawes’ boyfriend, who was also shot at during the incident. He said Dawes was five months pregnant when she died after being struck by at least four bullets.

But Johnson said Friday that Dawes wasn’t pregnant, according to the district attorney’s office investigation. Johnson also said her investigators didn’t believe there was sufficient evidence to bring a second charge against the officer because of the car’s second passenger.

Hess and another officer, whom the grand jury didn’t recommend charges against, had responded to a suspicious persons call, according to police accounts. Police said that Dawes and Rosales allegedly ignored commands to get out of the car, reversed the car into a police cruiser, rammed a wooden fence and were reversing away from the fence when police fired, killing Dawes and injuring Rosales.

Washington said that account is flawed. He said the couple was sleeping about 5 a.m. in the car when police arrived. He said from the evidence he has seen, Dawes never drove the car toward the officers or tried to hit them. He also said Dawes didn’t know the car was stolen.

Washington said the officers fired 14 times into the car and that he believed Hess had fired 13 of the shots.

“There were a total of 14 shots at a vehicle that was going 5 miles per hour,” Washington said. “I can 100 percent stand behind the fact that no officers were in danger. No officer, at the time that those shots were fired, were