Video: Mo. Police Use Cruiser to Stop Gunman Following Shootout
By Dana Rieck and Mark Schlinkmann
Source St. Louis Post-Dispatch
ST. LOUIS COUNTY, MO — A man died after he was hit by a police car following a gunfight with officers on Monday morning in the Ferguson area, St. Louis County police said. The interaction was caught on video by a driver, showing the man walking down West Florissant Avenue, waving a gun, shooting at least once and blocking traffic.
Sgt. Tracy Panus, a spokeswoman for county police, said officers were called to the area around 10 a.m. after a vehicle driven by the man was in a crash at West Florissant and Lucas and Hunt Road. She said he got out of his vehicle and began firing a gun indiscriminately as he walked down West Florissant.
Editor's note: The following video contains strong language. Viewer discretion advised.
Two county police SUVs responded, and, near Ferguson Avenue, the man fired at one. Officers fired back, and one then struck him with a police car. The man died at a hospital, Panus said.
She did not give his age.
During the investigation, police shut down West Florissant for several hours between Ferguson and Canfield Drive.
Canfield is an entrance to the former Canfield Green housing complex where teenager Michael Brown was shot and killed by a Ferguson police officer in 2014, triggering marches and riots that burned buildings and forced civic leaders to reconsider the role of law enforcement in the region.
A video on Monday appears to show the moments leading up to the man’s death. Panus confirmed key details in the footage, posted Monday morning by the social media page VOP News STL.
In the footage, a driver records a man walking north in the middle of West Florissant just south of Ferguson Avenue.
He can be seen wearing black shoes, light jeans, a black head mask and a bright blue shirt with a large “V” on the back.
In the video, the driver says the man has traffic backed up “because no one wants to go past him.” He notes the man has pulled out another clip while walking.
“This (expletive) ready to die, walking down West Florissant ...,” the driver says.
Soon after, the man is seen firing a shot upward and toward the right side of the street. Then the gunfire stops.
“He’s trying to shoot and it’s jamming,” says the driver.
The man “crashed at Lucas and Hunt and West Florissant,” the driver says into the video.
Then, police sirens can be heard, and a St. Louis County police SUV pulls up next to the man, who at this point is on a median in the middle of the road.
The last time the video catches the man, he’s walking away from the officer towards a sidewalk on the left side of the road.
Then shots ring out, and a police car speeds up into the left side of the frame.
A moment later, the driver is yelling that the man was hit by a police car and thrown into the air — a scene not captured on video.
“They hit him with the car!” the man shouted. “They flipped him with the car.”
“County hit him! County hit him!”
Panus said it wasn’t clear if the man had been shot.
The two county officers involved were both 30 years old, one with five years experience, the other, eight.
One officer got a minor injury. They uncovered a handgun with an extended magazine from the suspect.
Panus said the investigation was continuing.
The area is near Ferguson’s border with unincorporated St. Louis County.
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