A grand jury declined to indict a Fort Worth man who shot a state trooper but claimed he never knew he was a police officer because he was in plainclothes and driving an unmarked pickup. Scott Gordon reports.
UPDATE: An update on this story with the Texas Rangers' report of the trooper's account is available here.
A Fort Worth man who shot a Texas State Trooper is facing no charges after learning a plainclothes man outside his front door, and who had followed him home in what he thought was an act of road rage, was a law enforcement officer.
In an interview, Russell King said he and his wife Myra were driving home near Haslet on April 23 when he saw two pickups that appeared to be racing behind him.
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"Two trucks came flying by us at a high rate of speed," King said.
One of the vehicles exited the highway and the other ended up right in front of them.
"I visibly see him look in his mirror, shake his head like this, and that's when he brake-checked me," King said. "It was very deliberate."
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“Brake check” refers to someone slamming on the brakes, forcing the car behind them also brake suddenly.
King said he thought it was road rage – especially when the driver started chasing him, even onto a Walmart parking lot.
"That's where I saw him giving me the finger,” he said.
Concerned for the safety of him and his wife, King said he tried to speed away through traffic but the driver kept coming.
"He was going into oncoming traffic and made a bus swerve,” King said.
King said he did notice some flashing lights in the grill of the pickup but didn't think anything of it at the time.
"They didn't seem to be very official. I had never seen a police vehicle that was a gray Chevrolet truck,” he said.
The Kings said they thought they finally lost him, got home, backed into their garage, and immediately called 911.
A few minutes later, the same man in the same pickup pulled up in front of their house.
King said he watched on his live camera system as the man pulled what he thought was a gun out of the back -- and then approached the house and knocked loudly.
"I've never been so scared in my life. I really felt as if he were there to harm my wife and I,” King said. "I yelled, ‘Please go away. We called 911.’"
The camera captured what happened next.
King shot through the door. The man was hit in the shoulder and ran.
Fort Worth police and a uniformed state trooper quickly arrived and took King and his wife into custody.
It was then, handcuffed, in the back of a squad car, King said he was shocked to learn the truth.
"He told me, 'You've shot a state trooper.' My response was, 'How?'" King said.
The trooper, later identified as William Wallace, was a special agent assigned to criminal investigations and worked in plainclothes.
"There was no identification whatsoever,” King said. “There was no vest. There was no badge. Just a brown shirt and jeans."
The doorbell video shows Wallace shouted "police" when he knocked on the door. King said he never heard it.
Wallace was rushed to a hospital where he was treated and soon released.
King, who worked in the financial services industry before he lost his job in the pandemic, was never arrested but worried he would be any day.
"We were planning for me going to prison and what it would do to our lives,” King said.
Then, about two weeks ago, a grand jury heard his case and declined to charge him with a single crime.
"[It was] the most relief I've felt in my entire life,” King said.
The Kings spoke to NBC 5 with their lawyer, Robert Huseman of the Varghese Summersett law firm, by their side.
Following the grand jury's no bill, they said they just want to get on with their lives.
"I wish it never would have happened,” King said.
King has a clean criminal record. He said had known it was a law enforcement officer in that pickup, he said he would have simply pulled over right away avoiding the entire ordeal.
The Texas Department of Public Safety declined to provide a copy of the Texas Ranger’s report about the shooting under the open records law, even after King was no-billed by the grand jury, claiming the case was still under investigation.
In a statement released Friday, DPS said the investigation remains active "as evidence is pending disposition."
The department said Wallace is still recovering from his injuries and has not returned to active duty, adding the office of inspector general is not investigating.
This article was updated Friday with a statement from the Texas Department of Public Safety.
