Content warning: This body camera video contains graphic footage of a critical incident involving a child that may be disturbing to viewers.
PRINCETON, Ill. — Illinois State Police released body camera video showing a man refusing to give officers his 3-year-old hostage who was wounded by police gunfire.
The May 10 incident unfolded when Bureau County Sheriff’s Office deputies and Princeton Police officers responded to a domestic disturbance call involving a suspect holding multiple people hostage, including two children. Officers were advised that the suspect was armed with a knife. They entered the home when they heard screaming outside.
Body camera video shows officers inside the home as the man yelled at them to get out of the house.
“I’m not getting out until daylight,” the man yelled.
Officers attempted to use less lethal methods, including a TASER, before the man hid in a bedroom. Officers discussed not knowing what kind of weapons the man had on his person.
Officers tried to negotiate with the man, imploring him to come out from behind a door or to let the hostages out. He repeatedly refused, yelling at officers to leave the house.
Bureau County Sheriff James Reed described the confrontation as an exceptionally dangerous and unpredictable situation, saying the risk increased when an armed suspect barricaded himself in a room with multiple hostages and threatened to kill them.
“Officers are left with no risk-free option,” Reed said. “They can delay intervention and risk the suspect carrying out his threat, or they can enter and attempt to stop the attack.”
After making strategic plans to enter the room, officers went inside to find the man in a bed with the mother and children, holding them at knifepoint. According to Reed, officers entered after the man threatened to kill the hostages and fired when he lunged toward them.
A Princeton Police sergeant fired shots at the man, but also struck one of the children.
The man then grabbed the wounded child, holding them in front of his body and continuing to try to run from officers. The suspect was also wounded. Officers desperately commanded the man to hand the child to them so that they could provide medical care.
The man refused, holding onto the child and refusing to put him down. The man continued to talk about God and sing incoherently.
Officers fought with the man for more than a minute as he refused to hand the child over. They then used a TASER and physically wrestled the child from his grasp.
Three-year-old Damian Camacho died in the incident, KWQC reported.
The suspect was treated at a hospital before being jailed on charges of aggravated unlawful restraint, aggravated assault and domestic battery. Prosecutors announced that no charges would be filed against the sergeant who fired the shots.
Reed called the outcome devastating and acknowledged that recognizing the danger officers faced did not lessen the child’s death.
“A child who should be alive is gone,” Reed said. “We ask the public to watch the video in its entirety and to consider the impossible circumstances the officers faced as they attempted to stop what they believed was the imminent murder of multiple hostages.”
