It looks like police’s body camera video shows officers struggling for a gun moments before a man was fatally shot in the emergency room of a Ohio hospital.
The footage was released after Miles Jackson (27) was fatally shot in Mount Carmel St. on Monday. Ann’s Hospital in Westerville was shot. The incident involved officers from Westerville and Columbus.
In videos released by the Westerville Department of Police and obtained by NBC News, officers help Jackson get into an ambulance. They tell Jackson that he is being taken to the hospital so he can be evaluated.
Another video shows Jackson in a bed in the emergency room at the hospital while an officer handcuffed him to the bed.
A separate body-camera video obtained by NBC affiliate WCMH shows an officer explaining to Jackson that he should put his belongings in a plastic bag. Another officer is seen in the footage that removed Jackson’s handcuffs.
Things escalate when Jackson is asked to stand up so one of the officers can beat him.
“Now get his arm behind his back,” said the officer who laid Jackson down.
A fight ensues and the officer yells at Jackson to give him his arm and to ‘let go’.
“I’m going to comply, man. I’m going to comply,” Jackson said.
The second officer uses his stun gun on Jackson, causing him to scream in pain and fall to the ground. While the three men are fighting, a shot is fired.
The officer with the stun gun scurries out of the room and the other officer pulls out his firearm and pulls back to the corner. For several minutes, officers shouted at Jackson to raise his hands and drop the gun.
At one point in the video, Jackson tells officers he “dropped it” and says he is afraid to move because he does not want to shoot.
An officer standing in the hallway uses a Taser on Jackson. A shot is heard seconds later, followed by a series of gunshots. Officers immediately entered the room and called a doctor. After Jackson is taken out of the room, it is shown in the camera camera that it looks like it is a gun on the floor that is full of blood.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said preliminary ballistic tests showed Jackson had a gun and shots were fired. The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation is leading the investigation into the deadly shooting.
“BCI continues to interview witnesses and complete further forensic analyzes to determine all the facts. Partial facts provide only partial truth,” Yost said in a statement.
Westerville police chief Charles Chandler said two of his officers, Eric Everhart and David Lammert, initially encountered Jackson in a parking lot near the hospital. They were placed on administrative leave while an internal investigation into the emergencies was shot down.
“The investigation will investigate how and to what extent officers followed the correct policy and procedure from initial contact to the transfer of custody,” Chandler said in a statement.
The police chief said he was watching the videos from the camera when Everhart and Lammert met with Jackson for the first time and was concerned about further investigation.
Officers at the Columbus Police Department were also involved in the shooting. The department has identified them as Andrew Howe and Ryan Krichbaum, who are both 15-year veterans.
The department did not say whether Courts and Krichbaum would take any disciplinary action while investigating the shooting.
