07:07 PM CDT on Saturday, May 27, 2006

By ALAN MELSON / The Dallas Morning News

Alan Melson / DMN

The officer shot the man four times.

An off-duty Dallas police officer shot and killed a man at an Old East Dallas apartment complex Saturday morning after the man threatened the officer and lunged at him, police said.

The shooting occurred just after 9 a.m. in a breezeway at The Linden In Town apartment complex in the 2800 block of North Carroll Avenue, Dallas police Senior Cpl. Max Geron said. The man, whose name was not released pending notification of family members, was shot four times by the officer, who lived at the complex and was responding to a loud-music complaint at the request of complex management.

There were no indications that the man was armed, Cpl. Geron said.

The man who was shot and another man who may have been a resident at the complex were drinking and causing a disturbance at a swimming pool within the complex late Friday night. At about 5 a.m. Saturday, the two men went back up to a third-floor apartment and threw three chairs off the balcony, which smashed to the ground below, Cpl. Geron said.

Ramiro Rutiaga, who lives in a nearby apartment, said the noise woke him up.

“They were … throwing furniture in the pool, drinking and being loud,” Mr. Rutiaga said. “Then they went in and turned on the music real loud on their balcony.”

At 6:20 a.m. a resident at the complex called 911 to report loud music coming from the apartment. At 8 a.m., that resident called apartment management to report the music was still causing a disturbance, Cpl. Geron said.

He said Dallas central patrol division officer Michael Tayem, 23, is a resident at the complex who works part-time in an assistant management role there. He was contacted by another manager and asked to check out the disturbance.

Shortly after 8 a.m., Tayem told investigators he crossed through the pool area, heard the loud music and observed the broken chairs. After he looked up and saw the two men standing on the balcony, he went up to the apartment and knocked on the door.

Cpl. Geron said Officer Tayem, who was not in uniform, identified himself and flashed his badge after one of the men opened the door, and instructed him to turn the music down and clean up the mess. At that point, the second man, who was sitting shirtless inside the apartment, began loudly cursing the officer. The first man stepped out of the apartment, closed the door and said the other man was intoxicated, and implored Officer Tayem to let him take care of the problem. The officer agreed, and left.

After Officer Tayem advised a maintenance man about the broken chairs near the pool, he returned to the building where the two men were located and saw the shirtless man in a breezeway on the ground floor.

Cpl. Geron said the man began coming towards Officer Tayem as soon as he noticed him, cursing and threatening the officer with physical violence. Officer Tayem, observing that the individual was intoxicated and belligerent, told the man that he was under arrest and then tried to call 911. Officer Tayem said the man grabbed his arm but he was able to break free, and the individual then tried to walk up the stairs.

After Officer Tayem stopped the man was walking away, he said he put him on the ground, but the man immediately got back up, put up his fists and threatened the officer before charging at him. The officer drew his service weapon and fired multiple times, striking the suspect who then fell to the ground.

Resident Jay Doucette said he heard the shots as they were fired.

“I didn’t think anything about it until I heard the sirens and saw swarms of police,” he said.

The second man, whose name was not released, came outside after the shooting and was detained by police, who took him to headquarters for questioning. Dallas police Sgt. Gary Kirkpatrick said Saturday afternoon that it is unlikely he will be charged.

Cpl. Geron said Officer Tayem, a nearly four-year veteran of the department’s central patrol division, will be placed on routine administrative leave while the investigation is under way. The department’s special investigative unit came to the scene, and an internal affairs inquiry will be opened as well.

“One of the key focuses of the investigation is to see what, if any, alternative the officer had, and we’ll certainly be looking at that,” he said. “Officers are, as a matter of law, allowed to carry their weapons off-duty, but as far as the specific circumstances, they are under investigation.”

Cpl. Geron also said the significant size difference between the officer and the man who was shot may have played a role in the situation. Officer Tayem is about five feet, five inches tall and weighs about 140-150 pounds, but the other man was about six feet tall and may have weighed 200 pounds or more.

E-mail amelson@dallasnews.com