Man in custody after 2 Dallas police officers and store employee are shot

Reporting from DALLAS —  Two Dallas police officers were critically wounded in a shooting that also injured a home improvement store employee Tuesday, authorities said.

The shooting occurred about 4:15 p.m. local time as officers were escorting a man from the Home Depot in northern Dallas. The two officers and the store’s loss-prevention officer underwent surgery for their injuries, Police Chief U. Renee Hall said late Tuesday night. She did not provide details of their conditions but asked for continued prayers for their recovery.

Police arrested Armando Luis Juarez, 29, on charges of aggravated assault on a police officer and felony theft. He was taken into custody shortly before 10 p.m. after a lengthy car chase involving officers of various law enforcement agencies.

“We got our man,” Mayor Mike Rawlings said at the late-night news conference.

The two police officers were called to the store to help an off-duty officer with removing the man from the store.

In a tweet about the shooting Tuesday evening, the Dallas Police Department said the officers were critically wounded, but Hall declined to go into detail about their conditions during two news conferences at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas. She said surgery was completed on the police officers and store employee late Tuesday at the hospital.

Rawlings said he continues “to be upset at the lack of respect for our police in this city and in our country.”

In 2016, four Dallas police officers and a transit officer were shot dead by a sniper in an ambush that came toward the end of a peaceful protest over the police killings of black men that had occurred in other cities.