Sara Jean Green
The Seattle Times
SEATTLE — Seattle police on Tuesday evening released video footage from officers’ body cameras and dashboard cameras that shows a shootout with a suspected car prowler and a brief standoff that ended with the man’s death early Monday.
The images released by police compress what was a nearly hour-long search for the suspect into a 2½-minute clip. The incident began with police responding to a 911 call reporting a suspected car prowler near Ravenna Park.
“Hey, come here,” one responding officer is heard saying at the beginning of the footage, his voice calm as he confronts the suspect around 4:20 a.m. Monday in the 6000 block of 34th Avenue Northeast, according to police.
A man is seen stepping out of what looks like an SUV parked on the street and he appears to walk away.
“Come back here. Seattle police. Stop,” the officer calls, the video from his body camera quickly becoming jerky as he appears to run after the suspect.
A gunshot rings out and the officer utters an expletive and begins to radio in when another gunshot is heard, followed by a barrage of shots, the video shows.
“Shots fired. Help the officer,” a female dispatcher is heard saying.
The video fades to black.
According to police, no one was hit in the exchange of gunfire.
In the intervening time that wasn’t caught on camera, the suspect ran into the surrounding neighborhood, where officers set up a perimeter and began tracking him with a K9 unit, according to an account of the incident posted Tuesday on the department’s online blotter.
At 5:11 a.m., the suspect broke into a home in the 6000 block of 27th Avenue Northeast, where he confronted the residents and robbed them of their Volkswagen Jetta at gunpoint, police said.
The police-video footage picks up three minutes later, at 5:14 a.m., showing a patrol vehicle heading eastbound on Northeast 55th Street and making a left onto 26th Avenue Northeast, right behind another patrol vehicle coming from the opposite direction that turns right onto 26th.
Roughly 6 seconds later, the Jetta careens through landscaping on the side of the residential street, crashing into the police vehicles, the video shows.
Officers converge on the Jetta, yelling to the suspect to show his hands with their guns drawn as an officer tries to pull open the locked, front passenger-side door. The video angle then switches to a vantage approaching the Jetta from behind, where the suspect appears to be gunning the engine.
“Shut the vehicle off! You can’t go nowhere!” a different officer yells as he and another officer approach the rear of the vehicle. “Shut it off! Shut it off now!”
“He’s trying to back it up,” another officer can be heard saying.
The two officers at the back of the Jetta mention that neither has any kind of tool to break the car’s windows when the voice of the officer who yelled for the driver to shut the vehicle off can be heard yelling:
“He’s reaching, he’s reaching. Don’t do it!” he says, as the officer’s body camera comes parallel with a rear-passenger window and the driver can be seen reaching under a blanket or towel in the backseat and using his hand to search the rear floorboard.
“Stop reaching. Don’t do it,” the officer yells.
Shots are heard but that officer’s body-camera footage appears to be blocked, possibly by an officer who moved in front of him. The footage does not show the suspect being hit by gunfire.
After pulling the man from the vehicle, the same officer is heard calling for “CPR.”
According to Seattle police, one officer fired into the vehicle, striking the suspect, and several other officers provided first aid to the wounded man. He died at the scene.
In addition to the video, Seattle police released a photograph of a black handgun and fully loaded magazine that officers found inside the stolen Jetta, according to the police post.
As of Tuesday evening, the King County Medical Examiner’s Office had not released the name of the man who was killed.
The Police Department’s Force Investigation Team is investigating the shooting.
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