Video shows suspect pointed gun at officers before Sacramento Police shot and killed him
Law enforcement officials shot and killed a man last week whom they identified as a fugitive wanted for attempted homicide of a sergeant in early August, and the Sacramento Police Department on Tuesday released intense video from both incidents.
The man fatally shot as he fled from a reported standoff situation Sept. 1 has been identified by the coroner as 50-year-old Albert Wheeler, who’d been sought by the Police Department after allegedly shooting at a sergeant and other officers responding to a call in Sacramento’s Hagginwood neighborhood the evening of Aug. 4.
Wheeler was shot and killed by police in the 500 block of Wisconsin Avenue, less than three miles from the original shooting, after a nearly monthlong manhunt that included his vehicle being ditched at a nearby church.
The department said an officer fatally shot Wheeler after seeing him running with a gun, which was recovered from the scene.
A dashboard video and body-camera footage from the officer clearly captured the dramatic and deadly Sept. 1 confrontation, confirming the suspect pointed a handgun at an officer just before he was shot.
The videos show an officer stationed near the front of a gas station and liquor store shoot and kill the suspect, whose face is blurred, after the man runs around the rear of the store into an alley and points his gun at the officer as soon as he spots him.
Three things happen almost simultaneously: The police officer, as he fires multiple rifle shots at the suspect, falls backward after tripping over a parking block in front of the liquor store; a police K-9 in pursuit of the suspect catches up to him from behind; and the suspect also falls to the ground, though it’s unclear whether he’s been shot or if the dog brought him to the ground.
The officer gets back up, video shows, and fires one final shot at the suspect, who immediately falls to the ground, limp. According to the Police Department, the slowed-down video shows the man, allegedly Wheeler, is again pointing a handgun at the officer as he is on the ground struggling with the police dog.
Police also released helicopter video which shows the suspect — wearing a light-colored T-shirt — standing for several minutes inside the doorway in the backyard of a residence. Dispatch audio released by the Police Department includes an officer saying the man keeps “peeking out” the door.
He then throws an unknown item in the direction of several officers before sprinting in the other direction, toward the liquor store immediately adjacent to the residence.
“He’s on the run ... units at the gas station, get ready,” one officer says, according to dispatch audio.
Radio calls of “shots fired” are heard about 30 seconds after he takes off running, and the helicopter repositions to show the subject on the ground. SWAT officers approach him about 90 seconds after the initial shots were fired, slowly, using a shield, to render medical aid. One officer begins performing chest compressions, ground video shows.
Fire personnel then arrived and declared the man dead at the scene, the Police Department said in written statements.
No officers were shot or injured in the confrontation, the Sacramento Police Department said.
The department on Tuesday released a handful of video clips and three audio files from the pair of incidents. Sacramento Police spokeswoman Sgt. Sabrina Briggs said in a video news release that all related video and audio from the incident will be released within 30 days of the Sept. 1 incident, if not sooner, in accordance with city and department policy. The incidents remain under investigation, she says.
What happened in the early August shooting?
Body camera footage from the sergeant who arrived at the scene of the Aug. 4 shooting on Rivera Drive shows a woman, apparently the neighbor who called 911, approach the officer and plead, “Please don’t hurt him.”
“He’s running around here like crazy, ma’am,” the officer responds as he tells her to go inside her house, and she begins to run away.
Seconds later, at least two shots can be heard and the officer takes cover near his patrol vehicle with his handgun drawn, as he radios in, “shots fired.” A stream of patrol vehicles flies down the street, in apparent pursuit of Wheeler’s vehicle, as the officer heads up the sidewalk and tells spectating neighbors to get inside their homes.
The sergeant tells dispatch the suspect shot his vehicle; photos provided by the Police Department show a bullet hole near the center of the rear windshield of this sergeant’s SUV, just a few feet away from where he was standing when the shots were heard. The sergeant, who has not been identified, was not harmed.
In a news release accompanying the videos, the Sacramento Police Department says officers responded to Rivera Drive for reports of a suspect who was reportedly “armed with a firearm and suicidal.”
“While officers were in pursuit of the suspect, a Sacramento Police Department sergeant responded to the original scene to check on the welfare of the reporting party. Seconds later, the suspect drove down Rivera Drive towards the sergeant and his marked patrol vehicle,” the police news release said.
“As he passed by, the suspect fired multiple rounds at the sergeant, striking the patrol vehicle twice. Further investigation revealed that Wheeler had fired at multiple officers during the pursuit.”
‘Don’t hurt the dog’: Crisis negotiation phone call released
The Police Department says all occupants other than Wheeler were safely evacuated from the home involved in the Sept. 1 standoff incident that preceded the fatal shooting on Wisconsin Avenue.
The files released Tuesday include a six-plus-minute clip of a phone call between Wheeler and a crisis negotiator. The police news release says negotiators spoke with the suspect for “nearly an hour.”
“I’m gonna spend the rest of my life in prison and I’m not going back to prison, dude ... I came home, and I f---ed up, and I’m gonna pay the price. I’m not going back to prison. You need to understand that,” he says in the audio recording.
Wheeler, speaking through occasional sobs, tells the negotiator he doesn’t want to go to prison, asks to speak to his wife and tells authorities he doesn’t want anyone to get hurt inside what he calls his “safe house.”
“No one is gonna get hurt, OK?” Wheeler says. “Don’t hurt the dog. Don’t shoot up the house, you know what I mean? Just let me go to the back and you guys can deal with me on f---ing Arcade Boulevard. Don’t f--- up this house. This is my safe house.”
At one point, he apparently offers to surrender himself, then asks if the negotiator can guarantee him no prison time, and then rescinds. The recording ends.
