By Rosalio Ahumada
The Sacramento Bee
SACRAMENTO COUNTY, Calif. — The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office on Tuesday released video of authorities fatally shooting a man who led a high-speed vehicle pursuit on Interstate 80 last month before crashing his car into a motorcyclist and trying to stab that injured motorcyclist with a knife.
Zachary Wolffscott, 36, of Oakland , was struck by gunfire and wounded Nov. 5 when two California Highway Patrol officers and a sheriff’s deputy fired their weapons, according to the Sheriff’s Office. Wolffscott was taken by ambulance to Mercy San Juan Medical Center, where he was later pronounced dead.
The Sheriff’s Office released an edited video with narration from sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Amar Gandhi. The video contains footage captured on patrol car dashboard cameras and body-worn cameras.
About 12:20 p.m., a CHP motorcycle officer was involved in a vehicle pursuit of a silver Toyota Prius near I-80 and Norwood Avenue. The CHP officer had tried to pull over the car for a traffic violation, Gandhi said in the video.
Click below to see the full video.
Moments later, a sheriff’s K-9 deputy joined the vehicle chase, along with another CHP officer. Gandhi said the pursuit was heading east on I-80 ; speeds reached about 120 mph near Watt Avenue.
The Prius, which authorities said was driven by Wolffscott, struck the man riding the motorcycle on I-80, just east of Greenback Lane. The Prius then crashed into a raised berm off the shoulder of the freeway, rendering the car inoperable. The car’s front end was significantly damaged.
The motorcycle also was significantly damaged. Pieces of the two wrecked vehicles were littered all over the freeway. The video showed the motorcyclist was ejected from the motorcycle due to crash. He was on the road and injured as the deputy and the CHP officer parked their patrol vehicles nearby.
The deputy and the CHP officer were trying to order Wolffscott to stay in the crashed Prius, Gandhi said.
“Get on the ground, you’ll get bit,” the K-9 deputy can be heard in the video yelling at Wolffscott once he got out of the car, brandished a knife and began approaching the injured motorcyclist. “Sir, drop it!”
The video showed Wolffscott seemingly skipping across the eastbound freeway lanes, holding the knife in the air and continuing to approach the motorcyclist on the road directly in front of the sheriff’s deputy who was taking cover behind his patrol vehicle’s door.
That’s when the deputy fired two gunshots at Wolffscott, Gandhi said.
The video then showed that Wolffscott immediately fell onto his back on the road within a few feet of the injured motorcyclist. Seconds later, Wolffscott got up and motioned as though he was trying to stab the motorcyclist in the torso.
Gandhi said the deputy then fired four more gunshots, a CHP motorcycle officer fired three gunshots and the other CHP officer fired one shot, all at Wolffscott.
Wolffscott then fell a second time, the video showed, landing on his back in the roadway.
Gandhi said the two CHP officers and the deputy then approached to offer aid to the injured motorcyclist. He was taken by ambulance to a hospital.
The motorcyclist suffered serious injuries in the crash but survived, Gandhi said.
The deputy who fired his gun at Wolffscott has worked nine years at the Sheriff’s Office in corrections, patrol and the last two years as a K-9 handler, Gandhi said. The Sheriff’s Office did not release the deputy’s name.
Gandhi said investigators later recovered the suspect’s knife, which had a 6-inch blade.
The deadly shooting remains under investigation by the sheriff’s homicide bureau and professional standards division, which is standard practice for the Sheriff’s Office. The Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office will conduct an independent review of the shooting.
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