DALLAS — A suspect has died after a deadly shooting and then a SWAT standoff at an apartment complex in northeast Dallas, police said.
The incident happened at an apartment complex in the 12100 block of Audelia Road, north of the LBJ Freeway.
Police said the gunman, identified as 44-year-old Jorge Sadenos Escobar Flores, had barricaded himself in one of the apartments after shooting his girlfriend, Karla Castillo, 33, and her 14-year-old daughter during a fight.
Officers got a call about the shooting at about 12:45 a.m.
According to police, Castillo died in a hospital and her daughter was undergoing surgery at another hospital.
Around 7 a.m., detectives executed a search warrant of the apartment and SWAT entered and found Flores dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said.
Castillo's brother, Jose Castillo, spoke to WFAA about the incident.
"He’s just a coward that he shot at all of them and hurt my niece," Jose Castillo.
The family says there were two other children ages 6 and 12 inside the apartment. They believe Karla Castillo died trying to protect them. They say Escobar was extremely jealous, but Karla kept a lot of their problems private.
“She wouldn’t tell me anything because she knew I would intervene if she told me about it,” said Castillo.
According to the family, they all came into the U.S. undocumented hoping to find a better life. Her brother says Karla Castillo’s immigration status may have also kept her from calling police.
Police say that is often a concern with undocumented immigrants.
“We are not going to ask immigration status. Our reason we are there is to make sure the person is safe, whatever that call may be, but it’s not to check immigration status,” Kristin Lowman, a Dallas police spokesperson, said.
Domestic violence advocates say they see many cases like this. They say studies show many victims who are killed by intimate partners never called for help.
”We also know when victims do not reach out for help, they have a much higher propensity toward fatality. And so when we do review that lethality assessment each year, those who died often never sought services,” said Mimi Sterling of The Family Place.
Jose Castillo says he wishes he would have protected his sister.
“My sister I have no words to tell you how she was. She was everything to me and I was everything to her,” he said.
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