Sacramento police release video of sword-wielding standoff that ended in gunfire
The Sacramento Police Department has released body camera video of officers’ shooting of a knife-wielding man who threatened to kill his roommate and end his own life on Occidental Drive in the city’s College-Glen neighborhood.
The department-narrated video summarizes the 45-minute ordeal during the morning of July 14 on the 3100 block of Occidental that began with the man’s calm-voiced call to dispatchers that he was carrying a sword and wanted to kill his roommate.
Police are investigating the shooting that sent the man to a hospital in critical condition. The man remains in critical condition two weeks after the shooting and faces charges of assault with a deadly weapon on a peace officer and resisting arrest in the incident.
Sacramento police officials have not yet released the man’s name, but said officers fired on him as he advanced on them with the sword. Officers later collected the weapon at the scene.
Asked if he had an emergency, the man said he did.
“Yes, I’m trying to kill my friend,” he told dispatchers, according to the released video.
“How are you trying to kill your friend?”
“I have a big ass sword and he keeps getting on my nerves,” the man told dispatchers, the video showed. “I’m going to kill him.”
The man’s roommate was inside the home but was not hurt. The sword-wielding man would later tell a police negotiator that he and the roommate had an argument, that he wanted to end his life and for Sacramento officers to shoot him.
Before the gunfire, body-worn camera video showed the first officer on scene about 1:45 a.m., about 15 minutes after the call to dispatchers. Her weapon drawn, the officer tried to convince the man standing outside the Occidental home to put down the sword.
He refused: “I’m tired of living,” he was heard telling the officer on the video.
The officer asks again for the man to drop the sword to no avail.
“Please, put it down so we can talk to you,” the officer said at one point before calling in a police crisis negotiatior. The time was 1:47 a.m., approximately 17 minutes after the first call to 911. “Please? For me? Can you put it down?”
Another officer tried: “Anything we can do to help you?,” he asked.
“You can shoot me,” the man said “That might help.”
For the next half-hour, a crisis negotiator talked with the man.
“I don’t want to be here anymore,” the man told the negotiator. “My plan is to end my life.”
The department’s video concluded with the roughly 4 minutes and 40 seconds of the standoff’s final moments. Video showed the man unsheathing the 25-inch sword and swinging it as he walked toward officers who first fired less-lethal rounds before the gunshots that knocked the man to the ground.
“Eeny, meeny, miny, moe,” the man was heard on the video, calling out the children’s nursery rhyme, before walking toward the officers, swinging the large sword in front of him.
The officers fired their weapons, both the less-lethal rounds and some four to five gunshots. Police officials said the man was struck at least once before he was surrounded by officers. who began to render aid.
Sacramento homicide detectives and department internal affairs and professional standards investigators were assigned to the incident. A use-of-force investigation is also underway. The probes are being overseen by Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office and the city’s Office of Public Safety Accountability, said department officials.
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