Lawsuit seeking damages accuses alleged shooter’s parents, north Oak Cliff pawn shop of negligence.
The mother of Dallas police Officer Darron Burks has sued the parents of the man accused of killing him in late August 2024, along with a north Oak Cliff pawn shop she alleges sold the handgun and ammunition used in the shooting.
The lawsuit, filed March 17 in a Dallas County district court by Cherie Jeffery, comes more than a year and a half after Burks, 46, was shot and killed while sitting in his patrol vehicle outside a community center in east Oak Cliff.
The suit alleges the parents of Corey Cobb‑Bey, the man police say fatally shot Burks, were negligent because they failed to secure firearms despite their son’s “erratic and violent” behavior, including killing and burying a dog in his backyard, fighting with others and being fired from his job.
Lacey Turley Most, Jeffery’s attorney, said the grieving mother approached her months ago.
“No mother should ever have to bury a child,” Turley Most, of the Dallas-based Turley Law Firm, said in an interview Wednesday. “In August, it’ll be two years since this happened, and she still thinks about this every day. She is still devastated by it.”
Cobb-Bey’s father, Emery Cobb, did not comment on the suit when reached Wednesday morning. Messages seeking comment from the pawn shop, LG’s Million Dollar Pawn & Gun, were not returned.
Police said after Burks was shot, Cobb-Bey fired at two responding officers, then fled in his vehicle. Officers pursued Cobb-Bey into Lewisville, where he got out of his vehicle carrying a firearm and was fatally shot by Dallas officers. A grand jury cleared the officers who fired their weapons.
Cobb-Bey, 30, lived in a detached dwelling behind his parents’ home in east Oak Cliff. Though discovery in the lawsuit has not yet begun, Turley Most argued that Cobb-Bey’s social media posts, along with his behavior in everyday interactions, showed signs of instability severe enough that his parents should have intervened and the pawn shop should not have sold him a gun.
“Texas is a state with plenty of gun owners and that appreciates the Second Amendment, but, at the same time,” she said, “we are a state of responsible gun owners … and people who have others at their home understand that if there are guns at the house, they need to be locked in a safe, and if someone is behaving erratically and appears unstable, [that person doesn’t] have access to those guns that are kept at your home.”
Police records detailing the investigation reviewed by The Dallas Morning News state officers found “rhetoric” in the home relating to the Moorish Science Temple of America, a religious sect that dates to 1913.
In the weeks after the shooting, The News reviewed hundreds of Cobb-Bey’s public social media posts, YouTube videos and court filings for a criminal case in which he represented himself. Experts who reviewed the materials said they show he espoused a combination of beliefs drawn from fringe Moorish Science groups and elements of sovereign-citizen ideology.
Moorish Science groups, including at least two in the Dallas area, disavowed Cobb-Bey’s actions after the shooting. One of the Dallas groups once hosted him in study meetings in late 2017 and early 2018, the group’s leader told The News.
Days after the shooting, Cobb-Bey’s brother, Ladarrian Brooks, told The News their family was in “complete shock” and expressed condolences to the Burks family, as well as to the surviving officers and their families.
The suit says Cobb-Bey bought the handgun used in the shooting in early July 2024, less than 60 days before Burks’ death, from 24 Hour Pawn, which does business as LG’s Million Dollar Pawn & Gun.
Turley Most said she expects discovery will show that Cobb-Bey was acting erratically to the degree the store should’ve denied the sale. In that case, the handgun sale would be negligent and violate state and federal law, so the pawn shop is not shielded by the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which typically protects gun sellers from civil liability.
The suit was assigned to the 193rd District Court, where Judge Bridgett Whitmore presides.
Staff Writer
Chase Rogers is a public safety reporter covering the Dallas Police Department and Dallas Fire-Rescue. He grew up in Granbury and studied journalism at Texas State University. Before joining The News, he reported for the Austin American-Statesman and the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. His work has earned investigative reporting and Freedom of Information awards, including the Texas Managing Editor’s Star Reporter of the Year in 2022. He can be reached at 361-239-6527 and on Signal at crogers.95.
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