4 in custody after fatal shooting during robbery at Red Bird apartment, Dallas police say

Four people — including two juveniles — were in custody Sunday night after a man was fatally shot at a Red Bird apartment earlier in the day.

Damarte Tremayne Burt, 21, Josiah Andrew Salinas, 19, and the two juvenile suspects, whose names were not released because of their ages, each face a capital murder charge in the slaying of David Damato.

Dallas police were called just before 6:30 a.m. to a reported shooting at the Mandalay Palms apartments in the 3100 block of Cliff Creek Crossing Drive, near East Kirnwood Drive.

Damato, 21, had been shot multiple times and was pronounced dead in his second-floor apartment.

A witness told officers that she and Damato were awoken by the sound of glass breaking in their living room, police wrote in an arrest-warrant affidavit.

One of the juveniles confronted Damato — who was armed with a handgun — in the bedroom, and Damato shot him in the torso, according to the affidavit. Salinas then fatally shot Damato with a rifle, police said.

Burt and the second juvenile went into the apartment after the shooting and helped the other two steal cash, jewelry, shoes and Damato’s gun, the affidavit says.

The robbers took the wounded juvenile to a hospital, where authorities detained them, police said.

In an interview, Salinas admitted to targeting the apartment because he knew that Damato kept jewelry and cash there, according to the affidavit. He also admitted that he’d killed Damato, police said.

Burt denied going into the apartment during the incident, but Salinas contradicted that claim, police said.

Burt and Salinas were being held in the Dallas County jail; bail had not been set for either of them late Sunday. One of the juveniles was in juvenile detention, while the other — who had undergone emergency surgery — remained hospitalized in an unknown condition.

The Mandalay Palms apartments have been the site of multiple homicides in recent years, including a 20-year-old man shot in the chest last year and a 53-year-old man slain in 2017. In 2018, a resident wounded one of a pair of robbers who had broken into an apartment.

Damato’s slaying was at least the 20th in Dallas this year.