Sandy MaloneRaleigh, NC – Raleigh police released multiple bodycam videos from a January officer-involved shooting that occurred after a man accused of having caused a vehicle crash lunged at officers with a knife (video below).
The videos show officers arriving on the scene of a bad car wreck that included a flipped vehicle on the side of Interstate 440, WNCN reported.
Officers found the driver’s wife and injured 20-year-old son sitting beside the vehicle.
The son told officers that he had injured his back, the video showed.
An officer approached 43-year-old Daniel Turcios, the driver of the flipped truck, who was holding his seven-year-old son in his arms.
Raleigh Police Chief Estella Patterson said there had been multiple 911 calls from the scene reporting that someone was intoxicated and “armed with a knife” at the crash scene, the Charlotte News & Observer reported.
Turcios’ family has claimed he was just disoriented from the crash and was only carrying a small pocketknife.
But bodycam video showed that when officers arrived on the scene, a witness had stopped to talk to them and said that Turcios had been driving dangerously.
“This guy ran me off the road. That’s how this happened. He’s probably intoxicated,” the witness told police in the video.
Turcios overheard the exchange and asked in Spanish, “What did I do to you, man?”
The officer tried to talk to him, but Turcios became enraged, the video showed.
“I was just driving! I was just driving calmly!” Turcios insisted as he became more upset.
Another witness who had stopped to assist tried to help translate between the officer and the El Salvadorian native, the Charlotte News & Observer reported.
That bystander tried to calm Turcios and told him to sit down until an ambulance arrived, but the driver only became more agitated, the video showed.
The video showed Turcios walked over to his family and had an argument with his wife.
Then he pulled out a knife and began gesturing with it while he was surrounded by police and firefighters.
Bodycam video showed Turcios’ wife approached him and tried to take the knife.
He ignored her and then took his little boy’s hand and began walking away with him.
The mother intervened and got the seven year old away from his father as officers continued to order the man to drop his knife, the video showed.
The video showed Turcios began walking away and as soon as he was safely far enough away from his children, an officer deployed a Taser at his back.
Turcios fell stiffly to the ground, facedown, and officers surrounded him.
At first, he groaned and appeared to struggle, then he quickly popped back up prepared for a fight with his knife in hand, the video showed.
Bodycam video showed Turcios lunged at an officer with his knife and the officer fell backwards away from him, narrowing escaping the blade.
Then the video showed he turned in the direction of another officer with the knife still in his hand and that officer fired two rounds at Turcios.
Turcios went to the ground but tried to get back up again, knife still in his hand, the video showed.
So, the officer fired at him three more times.
After that, an officer kicked the knife away from Turcios’ hand and first responders gloved up to begin performing First Aid.
Bodycam video showed officers helped EMS load Turcios into an ambulance on a stretcher.
He was pronounced dead at the hospital.
The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigations (SBI) is heading up the investigation into the officer-involved shooting.
Cell phone videos posted to social media by bystanders immediately following the incident caused outrage in the community.
Turcios’ wife had claimed he had a limited understanding of English and didn’t know he was being told to drop the knife, despite bystanders translating for him in the video.
“There are other things that could have been done,” his wife told reporters. “It was unjust to take someone’s life who was innocent.”
Activist groups have demanded charges against the officers involved in the incident, the Charlotte News & Observer reported.
Dawn Blagrove, of Emancipate NC, said the video showed police “took a calm situation and turned it violent and deadly.”
“The initial taser was completely unwarranted,” Blagrove said. “He was tased in the back with his arms at his side. Criminal charges are warranted.”
Watch the incident unfold in the videos below. WARNING – Graphic Content:
Holly Matkin
