Holly MatkinSalt Lake City, UT – Bodycam footage captured the moment when a Salt Lake City police officer was shot while trying to stop a suspect from murdering a woman (video below).
The incident began at approximately 3:30 a.m. on Feb. 10 when 34-year old Natalie Thurber called 911 during a fight with her boyfriend, 31-year-old Michael Tyson Nance, KSL reported.
Thurber left the line open, allowing dispatchers to hear the altercation, as officers were sent to an apartment complex in the 100-block of South 300 East, according to The Salt Lake Tribune.
“Natalie can be heard stating that [Nance]… strangled her and tried to kill her,” court documents read, according to KSL.
She also said that Nance was blocking the door so she couldn’t leave the apartment and that he was armed with a knife.
Investigators later learned that Thurber had texted one of her friends, who also called 911 on her behalf, according to KSL.
“Help now, now!” the message read. “He’s trying to kill me.”
But the address her friend had given 911 was incorrect and didn’t exist, Salt Lake City Police Captain Richard Lewis said during a press conference on Tuesday, according to The Salt Lake Tribune.
Officers could hear a woman screaming inside an apartment when they arrived in the area.
As they made their way to a window of the residence, an officer could hear “gurgling sounds and a male yelling,” KSL reported.
Bodycam footage showed an officer as he kicked in the window.
Inside, Nance was actively strangling the victim, according to court documents.
“Drop it or I will shoot you right now!” the officer yelled. “Let me see your hands!”
Nance then told the officer to “hold on” and began walking away, court documents read.
The officer then radioed that the suspect was “coming out.”
But Nance had no intention of surrendering.
“[Nance’s] hand comes into view holding a handgun from around the bathroom door frame,” police said in charging documents, according to KSL. “The handgun is turned towards Natalie’s head and [Nance] fires the gun.”
The gunman then opened fire on Salt Lake City Police Officer Chad Miller, hitting him in the right leg.
Bodycam footage showed Officer Miller as he fell backwards and alerted his fellow officers that he’d been shot.
Officers dragged him to safety while other officers returned fire through the busted-out window.
Nance took off out the back door of the home as police made their way into the apartment, KSL reported.
Thurber was found dead inside the residence.
Officer Miller was rushed the hospital for treatment of his gunshot wound, KSL reported.
He has since been released to recover at home, but faces a long road to recovery.
When officers apprehended Nance a short distance away from the shootout, he was bleeding heavily from his face, KSL reported.
According to investigators, the gunman had shot himself in the face, sending a bullet through his chin and out the bridge of his nose.
He was transported to the hospital for treatment, and has since been booked into the Salt Lake County Jail on charges of aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, attempted aggravated murder, and aggravated murder, KSL reported.
Nance allegedly confessed to having murdered Thurber and said that he just “lost it” and strangled her, according to court documents.
Nicole Young, a friend of Thurber’s, described her as an “incredible, infectious, contagious, happy, bubbly” person who was “everybody’s best friend,” the Gephardt Daily reported.
“She was about happiness, love, family, she loved her family fiercely, she loved everybody fiercely, she loved with everything that she was,” Young said.
Watch bodycam footage of the officers’ encounter with Nance in the video below: