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GARLAND, Texas (AP) — Police in a Dallas suburb shot and injured a man Monday after a standoff in which he held a convenience store clerk at knife point and threatened to kill the clerk if officers did not kill him, a police spokesman said.
Officers responded to a call around 9:15 a.m. reporting an aggravated robbery at a store in Garland, a city about 19 miles (30 kilometers) northeast of downtown Dallas. They arrived to find 26-year-old Avery Norman standing behind the counter holding a knife, Lt. Pedro Barineau said.
“Kill me or I’m going to kill this man” Norman told the officers before dropping to the floor and seizing the clerk who had been lying there, Barineau said in a statement. He then allegedly wrapped his legs around the clerk, held the knife near the clerk's neck and continued to call for the officers to shoot him.
The officers begged Norman to drop the knife and let the clerk go, Barineau said, but he refused and asked the officers for one of their guns so he could kill himself.
Barineau said the officers negotiated with Norman for 15 minutes but he would not let the clerk go and eventually forced the man to his feet. Norman then wrapped his arm around the clerk's neck and “lowered the knife toward” his body, prompting one of the officers to shoot him, Barineau said.
Norman was taken to a hospital and remains in critical condition, Barineau said Monday afternoon. The clerk, a 25-year-old resident of nearby Irving, Texas, was not injured.
Barineau said the officer who shot Norman is on paid leave and the shooting is being investigated by the police department and Dallas County district attorney's office.
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