The Texas Department of Public Safety on Friday released hours of police body camera, dash camera and drone video that details their search for Dallas Cowboys defensive end Marshawn Kneeland in the hours before officers found him dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound earlier this month.
The videos depict the time period from when law enforcement started pursuing Kneeland in his Dodge Charger for speeding, starting shortly after 10:30 p.m. on Nov. 5, until they located his body around 1:30 a.m. on Nov. 6. During the police pursuit, Kneeland crashed his car into a pickup truck and fled on foot.
The DPS footage was collected from 10 troopers who were in multiple locations throughout the night, as well as from their vehicles and a drone. Some footage shows officers responding to the crash. Some shows troopers and other police officers fanning out across an office-park area in Frisco near The Star, the 91-acre campus of the Dallas Cowboys, searching parking garages, buildings, wooded areas and water ducts. Some officers were accompanied by K-9s. The drone scanned the wide area for heat signatures.
At the beginning of the search, officers were apparently unaware of who they were pursuing. Some learned they were looking for the Cowboys player at least an hour into their search. Some officers encountered Kneeland's girlfriend at least once while looking for him. Throughout the search, troopers encountered law enforcement from other agencies that were assisting DPS.
Officers ultimately located Kneeland's body in a portable toilet located in a parking circle between two office buildings.
ESPN reviewed the footage released by DPS. Some of the encounters captured on the video include:
The site of the crash
According to previously released highway surveillance video obtained by ESPN, Kneeland crashed his car at about 10:40 p.m. on Nov. 5.
The DPS video released Friday shows a trooper responding to the scene of the crash at 10:44 p.m. and checking on a woman standing outside a Ford F-350 pickup truck. The pickup truck had a flat front left tire.
"You're in a pretty big vehicle," an officer said to the woman, whose car was struck by Kneeland. She responded: "I swear this is what saved me." The woman said the truck she was driving had been hit by a car that startled her with its speed. The responding trooper said several times on the video that the driver who hit her was traveling as fast as 160 miles per hour at points during the chase.
The woman told police she had left dinner with a friend when she was struck. "He hit me out of nowhere," she said to a responding officer. She briefly cried and later added: "My heart is pounding. I'm going to throw up."
The woman told police that the person who crashed into her ran over a hill in front of the grass field where he abandoned his Charger. The DPS footage shows the Charger's driver-side door open and an air bag deployed. The woman said the man returned to his vehicle after he left it before taking off again.
The woman also told officers her car was hit by a Hispanic man who was no more than 175 pounds. (Other DPS video from later in the night shows officers asking witnesses if they'd seen a Hispanic man of slight or medium build.) At 11:09 p.m., the trooper showed the woman a photo of Kneeland after learning he was registered to the crashed Charger. The crash victim said Kneeland had the same curly hair and skin tone as the man who hit her.
There were no plates on Kneeland's car. After running the car's vehicle identification number, the trooper found that Kneeland had a custom tag for the Charger: "IDNTSPD"
At the crash scene, officers openly wondered whether the Charger could have been stolen because there were no plates.
Interactions with Kneeland's girlfriend
At about 11:10 p.m., a trooper in one video says that Frisco police told him a white Buick is trying to pick up the suspect.
Then at about 11:15 p.m., a different DPS trooper pulls over a white Buick. In the car is a woman who would later be identified as Kneeland's girlfriend, Catalina Mancera.
The trooper, who apparently doesn't yet know the suspect is Kneeland, or that the woman is his girlfriend, directs Mancera to open the car door, step out of the car and walk backwards toward him. He puts her in handcuffs and says, "You're matching the suspect vehicle that's come to pick up a guy, alright?"
He asks her what she's doing and she tells the officer her GPS has stopped working. The officer places her in the front seat of his police car and searches the Buick. After he clears the vehicle, he removes Mancera from his car and takes off her handcuffs. Mancera tells him: "I live nearby, but my location -- it's not showing me where I'm at so I'm... trying to figure out where I'm at," and continues to explain that her GPS isn't working. She then tells the officer she's staying nearby and doesn't live in the area.
The officer sends her back to her car and tells her to be safe, as there's a vehicle police are searching for "matching your description." Throughout the interaction, Mancera never mentions Kneeland.
At about 11:40 p.m., less than half an hour later, the same trooper meets a Frisco police officer who tells him law enforcement "have" Mancera again and that "they're trying to get her to call him to give up, but he's saying he's going to end it all."
Later that night, at about 1:00 a.m. on Nov. 6, the same trooper drives to meet a set of officers who are with Mancera. When he arrives, he confronts Mancera and says, "What's goin' on ma'am, why are you lying to me?" She replies that she did not lie. A retired police officer tells the trooper to back down, saying, "Let's not do that, we're in cooperating mode." The trooper leaves the scene.
Mancera did not respond to a message from ESPN seeking comment. There appears to be no other footage of Mancera in the DPS video.
The water duct
Videos show several officers searching a water duct tube system in the office park starting around 11:15 p.m. to see if their suspect was hiding in it. A Frisco police officer shouted into a pipe that opened into a grassy area, calling for anyone inside to come out and that he would send his K-9 inside to find and bite them.
"He's a big dude, though, yeah?" one officer asks.
In other videos, officers claimed they heard a cough from inside the pipes. At about 11:30 p.m., officers shot pepper balls -- which emit a chemical irritant -- into the pipe system. At about the same time, an officer onsite tells the others that the suspect is armed.
Just after midnight, a group of officers at the water duct receives information that police learned the suspect's phone pinged "right where we are."
"We're literally directly on top of that - -like, dead center of that circle," an officer says.
"Watch that tunnel."
"I mean, he's around here somewhere -- I'm thinking tunnel."
The officers continue to monitor the entry to the water duct for another 10 minutes until some are called to check out a heat signature found nearby.
It's unclear when officers stop monitoring the duct area.
Officers learn they're chasing Marshawn Kneeland
Several of the body camera videos show officers learning that the suspect they're searching for is Kneeland.
According to one video, at 11:31 p.m., two troopers searched the internet for Kneeland, and one said: "I think he might have played [two nights ago]." Kneeland scored his first professional touchdown two nights before he died, against the Arizona Cardinals on Monday Night Football.
In another video, at about 11:55 p.m., a Frisco police officer relays what he heard on the radio to the troopers he's with, saying Plano police are "on the phone with the NFL, [Kneeland] is texting them and his family goodbye." (According to previous ESPN reporting, Dallas Cowboys director of security Cable Johnson called Plano police at 11:40 p.m. to ask for a welfare check on Kneeland and to report concerning texts.)
"Oh that's not good," a trooper responds.
"This just became national news," the Frisco police officer says. He then searches for Kneeland on his phone and shows Kneeland's picture to the officers he's with, including the K-9.
In another video, at about 1:15 a.m., one trooper tells another that the suspect is Kneeland, and a trooper says, "Anyone else they would've been kicking down doors and all that."
"They don't want him to die," the other responds. "That'll be broadcast all over."
