Dramatic body camera footage captured the moment Texas police arrived at the home of a British man who fatally shot his daughter after they got into an argument about President Donald Trump.
Lucy Harrison, a 23-year-old fashion buyer who lived in Warrington, Cheshire, was visiting her father, Kris Harrison, and his family in Prosper, a suburb of Dallas, when she was shot in the chest on January 10, 2025.
Footage released by the Cheshire Coroner’s Court shows Kris Harrison telling a police officer that he and his daughter were “talking about guns” as they were getting ready to bring her to the airport.
“She said, ‘You got a gun?’ I said, yes, I got it out and it just went off and she stood there like, as I pulled it out,” Harrison said. “It went off,” Harrison told police last year in the footage, which was released by the Cheshire Coroner’s Court.
“I put it on the bed straight away,” he added. “It was in the bedside cabinet. In a locked box. And we took it out to look and just as I picked it up, it went off.”
Lucy’s boyfriend, Sam Littler, can be seen in the clip holding his hands on his head as Harrison speaks with the officer.
An inquest at Cheshire Coroner’s Court concluded last Wednesday with a senior coroner ruling Lucy had been unlawfully killed.
“To shoot her through the chest whilst she was standing would have required him to have been pointing the gun at his daughter, without checking for bullets, and pulling the trigger,” senior coroner Jacqueline Devonish said. “I find these actions to be reckless.”
Family members were in tears as the coroner said she found Lucy had died due to unlawful killing on the grounds of gross negligence manslaughter.
Speaking outside the coroner’s court, Lucy’s mother, Jane Coates, said: “Today’s outcome has finally given Luce her voice back, after what has been an unrelenting year of deep shock, grief and fight.”
She said her daughter was “failed” by Texan gun laws and decisions made by the police department in Prosper.
Lucy’s boyfriend, who was with her on the trip, told the inquest earlier Wednesday that she had gotten into an argument with her father about Trump, who was soon to be inaugurated, the same day she was killed.
He said that about half an hour before they were planning to leave for the airport, Harrison took his daughter to the bedroom where he kept a Glock semi-automatic handgun secured in his bedside cabinet.
Littler said he heard a loud bang about 15 seconds after they went into the room, and then heard Harrison screaming for his wife.
“I remember running into the room and Lucy was lying on the floor near the entrance to the bathroom and Kris was just screaming, just sort of nonsense,” Littler said.
Harrison did not attend the two-day hearing in Cheshire Coroner’s Court but said in a statement that he bought the weapon to give his family a “sense of security.” Texas laws allow him to own the gun without a license.
The father claimed his daughter asked to see the gun, having never discussed his gun ownership with him before.
However, the inquest heard evidence from others that Lucy knew her father had a weapon in the home and disagreed with it.
In the statement, Mr Harrison, who admitted drinking wine earlier in the day, said: “As I lifted the gun to show her I suddenly heard a loud bang. I did not understand what had happened. Lucy immediately fell.”
He told police at the scene: “We got it out to have a look and just as I picked it up it just went off.”
Devonish, the coroner, found that Harrison also did not immediately tell others that he had been the one to shoot Lucy.
“He knew full well he had shot his own daughter, pointing a gun at chest height and pulling the trigger,” Devonish said. “He did not ensure that this information was passed to 911. With a bullet through her heart, her prognosis was poor in any event.”
Devonish described Harrison as a “secret drinker” and said she had “no doubt whatsoever” that he had been drinking throughout the day his daughter was killed.
The coroner accepted that Harrison did not know the gun was loaded, but did not accept that Lucy would have asked to see the gun, since she was against weapons.
“His actions have killed his own daughter and in the cold light of day it is hoped that he now recognises the risk he posed to her life in circumstances in which he had no experience of guns, had undertaken no training and had never fired a gun,” Devonish said.
The inquest also heard that police in Texas failed to test Harrison for alcohol, even though they had suspected he had been drinking after smelling alcohol on his breath.
Meanwhile, a grand jury in the U.S. determined there was insufficient evidence to charge anyone, including Harrison, in connection with Lucy’s death.
“She was young, vibrant and beautiful, with her whole life ahead of her, and this was a most tragic death,” the coroner concluded.
