Joshua Brown

UPDATE: Dallas Police Chief U. Renee Hall has issued a statement regarding the murder of Joshua Brown. In an email time-stamped 4:54 p.m., Chief Hall said:

“Today at approximately 12 p.m., the Dallas County Medical Examiner confirmed the identity of Joshua Brown to the Dallas Police Department. Brown, a witness in the Amber Guyger trial, was shot and killed Friday, Oct. 4 in the 4600 block of Cedar Springs Road. There are no suspects or motives at this time. We are committed to solving this case and will work diligently to apprehend the individuals responsible for Brown’s death.”

Attorney S. Lee Merritt, who represented the family of Botham Jean and who said Brown’s mother and asked him to help find her son’s killer, said on Twitter on Saturday that Brown had been shot in the mouth and chest. reports posted earlier today on the Dallas Police Department blog, DPD Beat, said Brown suffered “multiple gunshot wounds to his lower body.”

UPDATE: Houston businessman Bill Perkins has reportedly offered a $100,000 reward for information in the murder of Joshua Brown, according to a tweet by activist Shaun King posted at 9:23 a.m. today (Sunday Oct. 6).

King is “an American writer, civil rights activist and co-founder of Real Justice PAC”  who is “known for his use of social media to promote social justice causes,” according to Wikipedia. Perkins is “an American hedge fund manager, film producer and high-stakes poker player” who focuses on venture capital and energy markets” and who founded Small Ventures USA, L.P in 1997, later joined Centaurus Energy and currently manages Houston-based energy hedge fund, Skylar Capital, Wikipedia notes.

King in his tweet declared that Brown was executed, although he erroneously said Brown was murdered at the same apartment complex where Jean was shot to death last year. King’s tweet also includes a retweet of a post by S. Lee Merritt, the attorney who represented Botham Jean’s family.

Merritt’s tweet, time-stamped at 6:44 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 5, said: “Joshua Brown was shot in his mouth & chest. He was exiting his car at his apt when he was ambushed & shot at close range. His mother asked my office to help find out who murdered her son. She suspects foul play. He had no known enemies. He worked for a living. We need answers.”

UPDATE: The man shot to death Friday night at the ATERA Apartments on Cedar Springs Road has been identified as Joshua Brown, the next-door neighbor of Botham Jean who testified for the prosecution in the trial of former Dallas cop Amber Guyger, convicted last week of shooting Jean to death in September 2018.

Although Dallas Police have not yet released information regarding his identity, but Dallas civil rights attorney Dominique Alexander, a Dallas area civil rights activist who is close to Brown’s family, posted on Facebook  about his death, and Lee Merritt, attorney for Botham Jean’s family, confirmed the news on Twitter, according to LawAndCrime.com.

ORIGINAL POST: Dallas police are investigating a shooting Friday night at the ATERA Apartments in Oak Lawn that left one man dead, according to police reports. Public Information Officer Mitchell Warren said in an email that two gunshot victims “that showed up at Parkland [were] not related to this shooting.”

Warren said that officers responded to a shooting call at the apartment complex, located at 4606 Cedar Springs Road, just west of the toll road, at about 10:37 p.m. Witnesses there flagged the officers down and directed them to where a man was lying on the ground with “multiple gunshot wounds.”

Dallas Fire-Rescue transported the man to Parkland Memorial Hospital where he died from his injuries. Warren said the victim had no ID on him, so investigators are waiting for positive identification from the Medical Examiner’s Office.

Witnesses also told police that after hearing several gunshots, they saw a silver four-door sedan speeding out of the parking lot.

Warren said there is no additional information on the suspects, and no one is in custody in what he described as an on-going investigation.

— Tammye Nash