A Tarrant County sheriff’s deputy who was shot off-duty last week is still recovering at John Peter Smith Hospital, with no clear timeline for his recovery, Sheriff Bill Waybourn told reporters at a press conference on Monday.
Deputy Brent Brown was shot twice while working a security job at a Fort Worth Community Credit Union on Brentwood Stair Road, according to law enforcement. At the press conference, police showed snippets of bank security and police body camera footage. In the video, the suspect appears to shoot Brown. Brown falls to the ground, then gets back up, shooting back at the suspect as he ran out of the bank.
“It could have gone a very different way had he not responded the way he did,” Fort Worth Police Chief Neil Noakes said.
Community members helped police find the suspect, Leland Williams, at a relative’s house, Noakes said. Police arrested him there after a brief standoff.
Williams, 35, was charged with attempted capital murder of a peace officer. So far, he has declined to speak with police about why he was at the credit union, Noakes said.
At the bank, Williams said he was there to open an account and gave a false name, according to a police department press release.
Williams is in custody at the Tarrant County Corrections Center, public jail records show. The court bumped his bond to $1 million after several officials including County Judge Tim O’Hare and Commissioner Manny Ramirez criticized the original $100,000 bond amount for being too low.
Waybourn said Brown recovery is going well, and his attitude has been “incredible.”
“Deputy Brown would make every cop in America proud,” he said.
There will be no change in the way the sheriff’s office allows deputies to take on off-duty jobs, Waybourn said.
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