MCKINNEY, Texas—A Texas man was convicted Wednesday of capital murder for 2018 killings of a Dallas-area police officer and another man.
Brandon McCall, 28, faces death or life in prison without parole when he is sentenced for shooting his friend, Rene Gamez II, and Richardson police officer David Sherrard in what police described as an ambush. Defense attorneys acknowledged that McCall shot the men but said the killings were unintentional.
A Collin County jury returned the guilty verdict after about two hours deliberations and will begin hearing testimony Monday in the punishment phase of McCall’s trial.
McCall was accused of shooting Gamez, 30, in an apartment complex in the suburb north of Dallas and then shooting Sherrard in the chest as he entered the apartment after responding to reports of gunfire. The 37-year-old officer was a married father of two daughters and later died at a hospital.
McCall barricaded himself in the apartment after the shooting and fired at random during an hourslong standoff before officers arrested him.
During the trial, jurors were shown police body camera video of the moment Sherrard was shot and a video in which McCall admitted to opening fire on officers.
The latter video shows an officer reading McCall his Miranda rights as he lies in a hospital bed after the shootings. The officer then asks McCall why he shot at police.
McCallreplies: “Cause I wanted to.”