A man in crisis was shot and killed by River Oaks police officers late last night after he retrieved a handgun from inside his home and pointed it at them, according to police. Officers had been called to the house in the 900 block of Yale Street around 9:30 p.m. because the man was suicidal, and he was pronounced dead at the scene.
According to the police department, officers responded to the Yale Street residence after receiving a report that the man was suicidal. Police say he failed to comply with verbal commands before going back inside the house and returning with a gun, which he then aimed at the officers, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Officers opened fire, and the man was pronounced dead at the house. No officers were injured, and they have been placed on standard paid administrative leave, which is standard procedure following an officer-involved shooting.
The shooting is now the subject of two separate outside criminal investigations, as well as an internal departmental review. The Texas Rangers and the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney's Office are each conducting standard criminal investigations, according to CBS News Texas. That dual-track review by state and county investigators, run alongside the department's own internal look at the shooting, is the routine framework Texas law enforcement agencies use to avoid conflicts of interest whenever an officer fires a weapon.
A Pattern of Overnight Violence Across North Texas
The River Oaks shooting came roughly 19 hours after a separate fatal officer-involved shooting in Garland, where police shot and killed a man armed with a machete Monday morning, the station's report notes. Garland officers had reportedly tried a Taser before resorting to gunfire. The near-back-to-back incidents reflect a cluster of fatal law enforcement encounters across the Dallas-Fort Worth area within a single day.
This is not the first time a River Oaks officer has fired a weapon during a high-stress encounter. In April 2025, a 43-year-old man died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound during a River Oaks traffic stop on River Oaks Boulevard after brandishing a handgun, and an officer also discharged a weapon during that incident, per the same account. That case was similarly referred to the Tarrant County District Attorney's Office Officer-Involved Shooting Team and eventually a grand jury.
How Texas Law Governs Mental Health Encounters
Under Chapter 573 of the Texas Health and Safety Code, peace officers may take a person into custody without a warrant for emergency detention if they reasonably believe the individual has a mental illness creating an imminent, substantial risk of serious harm to themselves or others, according to FindLaw. Officers are expected to weigh behavioral signs of severe emotional distress before deciding how to intervene. In Tarrant County, mental health crisis intervention and 24-hour emergency assessments are managed through My Health My Resources of Tarrant County and its Mobile Crisis Outreach Team, as detailed by Tarrant County officials. Whether such crisis responders or a mobile outreach team were alerted during Monday night's initial 9:30 p.m. call to the Yale Street residence remains an open question.
River Oaks is a small municipality of roughly 7,400 to 7,600 residents covering about 2.0 square miles, located five miles northwest of Fort Worth, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures. The city's small police force falls under Police Chief Charles Stewart, within a municipal government led by Mayor Darren Houk, per the City of River Oaks. Because the department is so small, critical incidents like fatal shootings routinely get handed off to state and county bodies for review, as happened after the 2025 traffic-stop shooting.
What Happens Next
Following the conclusion of the Texas Rangers and district attorney investigations, the case will be submitted to a Tarrant County grand jury, which will determine whether any criminal charges against the involved officers are warranted, consistent with the protocol used in other Tarrant County police shootings. The identities of the deceased man and the officers involved have not been released, and details about exactly how quickly the encounter escalated once he went back inside for the gun remain unclear.
