VIDEO: Deputy Takes Out Gunman At City Hall

La Quinta, CA – Authorities released bodycam video on Thursday of the deputy-involved shooting of a man who showed up at La Quinta City Hall armed with a semi-automatic rifle in September (video below).

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco said in the video released by his agency that the incident began with a 911 call at about 1:25 p.m. on Sept. 24, the Desert Sun reported.

Sheriff Bianco also released an audio recording of the emergency call along with the bodycam.

“Ah, La Quinta, um,” the caller began. “La Quinta police station. Man with a gun.”

“Okay, they’re at the police station?” the dispatcher asked in the recording.

“Yeah,” the caller responded.

Then the dispatcher asked for the address and cross streets of the location of the police station, the video showed.

“Calle Tampico,” he told her.

“Calle Tampico and what?” the dispatcher asked.

“Washington,” the caller responded.

Then the dispatcher asked the 911 caller for the ethnicity of the gunman and the caller said he didn’t know, the video showed.

The caller said he’d seen the person but didn’t know what race the gunman was.

Then he hung up the phone on the dispatcher, the video showed.

Sheriff Bianco said it wasn’t until later that detectives realized that the 911 caller had been the gunman himself, 64-year-old Randy Fedorchuk, calling from their parking lot, the Desert Sun reported.

The bodycam video began inside the Riverside County sheriff’s substation located inside the La Quinta City Hall complex and showed a deputy looking out through the blinds into the courtyard.

“Yeah, he has a rifle, man,” one deputy told another deputy inside the office with him.

The inside of the substation is blurred in the video for security purposes.

The deputy radioed the dispatcher and described the armed suspect as a white man “probably in his 60s or 70s, white shirt, black shorts. He has a rifle with him.”

The dispatcher confirmed the description and asked for his location.

The deputy responded that the suspect was in the parking lot next to the sheriff’s department’s vehicles, the video showed.

“He seems agitated. He’s walking back and forth,” he told the dispatcher.

“Let’s not approach him right now,” the deputy told the other deputy in the substation.

Then he asked the dispatcher for the location of “air and K9,” the video showed.

A moment later, the other deputy suggested that since the gunman wasn’t holding his gun in a shooting position, they should go and “get him at gunpoint.”

The video showed they raced outside the substation with their weapons drawn to confront the suspect.

“Put your hands up! Drop the gun! Drop it!” a deputy yelled in the video.
“Drop the gun, sir. Drop the gun! Gunpoint. Drop the gun!” the other deputy yelled.

Then the video showed Fedorchuk was holding his rifle in a firing position.

Fedorchuk aimed his rifle directly at one of the deputies as he advanced toward him, the video showed.

Both Fedorchuk’s gun and the deputy he pointed it at can be seen briefly in the video before the deputy opened fire.

The deputy fired two shots and Fedorchuk dropped to the ground, the video showed.

One of the deputies kicked Fedorchuk’s gun away from him and called for an ambulance, the video showed.

“Kill me. … Kill me. …. Kill me,” the gunman begged the deputies in the video.

“No,” one of the deputies replied.

Fedorchuck was transported by ambulance to the hospital where he later died, the Desert Sun reported.

Sheriff Bianco said the district attorney’s office had taken the lead on the investigation.

“When we have a deputy-involved shooting, multiple investigations are automatically launched,” the sheriff explained. “An investigator from the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office will lead this investigation, aided by the Riverside County Sheriff’s Force Investigations Detail, and Central Homicide Unit.”

“This combined investigation will examine the original call, Mr. Fedorchuk’s actions and the deputy-involved shooting,” he added.

Sheriff Bianco said he had also launched an internal review of the deputies’ actions, the Desert Sun reported.

“We take the use of force very seriously and make every effort to de-escalate these situations whenever possible,” the sheriff said.

He said all of the investigations were ongoing, the Desert Sun reported.

Watch the incident unfold in the video below. WARNING – Graphic Content: