O'FALLON, Mo. — The St. Charles County Police Department released a "critical incident briefing" video Friday, that describes and shows a shooting of a 17-year-old.
Capt. David Tiefenbrunn, the commander for the Bureau of Criminal Investigation narrates and explains officer bodycam footage of the January incident in which O'Fallon police fatally shot the teen.
On January 23, two officers with the O'Fallon Police Department responded to a call for a suspicious vehicle that was unlicensed and had heavy damage, with two people inside from a resident living in the 500 block of Prentice Drive.
The video, published to the St. Charles County police YouTube channel, gives police’s scripted narrative of how the incident played out. It includes edited bodycam clips. Tiefenbrunn said in the video that details had been redacted in accordance with Missouri law.
The shooting
The bodycam shows two responding officers knocking on the window of a white sedan. St. Charles County prosecuting attorney Tim Lohmar said in a later news conference the officers suspected the vehicle was stolen, but the officers did not know that at the time of the shooting.
In the bodycam video, the officer tries to open the driver's door. Both officers, guns drawn, requested the two people exit the vehicle. They did not exit the car on request.
Tiefenbrunn said in the briefing that the first responding officer, on the driver's side of the car, "observed the occupants to be in possession of a firearm."
Bodycam video shows the driver sitting up, but a gun is not visible in frame in the video footage. Neither officer mentions a gun.
Lohmar said the officers did not verbally communicate whether or not they saw a gun in the car, but the officer standing on the driver’s side of the car said he “saw a hand holding a gun,” Lohmar said. The officer claimed he could not see who was holding the gun inside the vehicle.
According to Tiefenbrunn, after seeing the gun, the first officer smashed the driver's side window with his gun.
The driver of the car then backs the vehicle into a patrol vehicle and drives away.
The footage shows, from two different officer perspectives, that both officers fired several shots at the people inside the car as they were driving away from the police.
After the driver sped away from the scene after striking the police car, the officer believed he and his partner to be in imminent danger, Lohmar said. The officer cited that as the reason he discharged his weapon. He fired his weapon four times at the car.
Ballistics revealed the first officer was the one who dealt the fatal shot to the driver, striking him in the back and hitting several vital organs, including the heart, Lohmar said. The driver also suffered from a gunshot to the back of the head.
The second officer believed the shots fired by the first officer were coming from inside the vehicle, leading him to shoot at the car 11 times, Lohmar said.
The critical incident briefing shows a third perspective of the shooting, taken from inside a house in the neighborhood. This video was recorded by a neighbor and shows police approaching the car, the car driving away, and the shots fired by police. It was obtained in the investigation.
The second scene
Tiefenbrunn said that police located the vehicle a few streets away, crashed into a sidewalk at the intersection of Mexico Road and Aspen Pointe Drive. Other officers responded to this scene.
Bodycam video shows these officers walking toward the vehicle and asking that the driver of the vehicle show his hands. Officers ask the passenger of the car to exit the vehicle and put his hands on his head.
The passenger then indicated to police that the driver was “dozing off" and that he "probably has a gun."
The passenger, also a juvenile, was uninjured, Lohmar said.
Video shows police opening the driver’s door and the unconscious driver. Teifenbrunn said they transported the driver to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Police said that a gun was located on the floorboard of the car.
The St. Charles County video indicates that the case was referred to the county prosecutor for an independent review of the investigation. Lohmar said the officers would not be facing charges in the shooing.
Lohmar said the officers had been on the O’Fallon police force for 11 and 15 years at the time of the incident. He said neither officer has ever had a record of unnecessary use of force. Their names have not been released.
Editor's note: The below video may be upsetting. Viewer discretion is advised.
The video can be seen on the St. Charles County Police Department YouTube channel.