HollyMatkinBartlesville, OK – A 72-year-old woman who opened fire on officers with a BB gun was fatally shot by police on Jan. 17.
Much of the incident was captured by a Bartlesville Police Department (BPD) officer’s cell phone, which he affixed to his uniform prior to conducting a drug raid at the residence, KJRH reported.
The incident occurred at approximately 9:30 p.m., when four BPD officers went to the home of Geraldine Townsend to arrest her son, 50-year-old Michael Livingston, on an outstanding illegal drug sales warrant, Tulsa World reported.
The video showed the officers as they approached the home and knocked. They announced themselves three times before they made entry.
“Get on the ground!” the officers immediately began yelling.
A quick popping sound was heard in the video.
“Put that f*******g gun down!” one officer shouted. “Put the f*******g gun down!”
“It’s a BB gun!” Livingston said, as a louder pop was heard. “That’s my mother, man! That’s a BB gun – you killed my mother.”
“We have an officer down, shots fired,” an officer said over his radio.
“You good man?” an officer asked. “Where you shot at?”
“My face,” the other officer replied.
The officer with the camera then exited the home with the officer who was shot in the face, as he attempted to determine the severity of his injuries.
“I’m alright,” the injured officer said.
“F**k dude, you’re shot in the face,” the other officer said.
“It was something, I don’t know what I got shot with,” the injured officer replied.
“Did you see her have the gun?” the officer with the camera asked as he examined his colleague’s injury.
“Yeah I saw her pointing that f*********g gun,” the officer confirmed, adding that he also saw Townsend shoot another officer.
“And then I come back around to cover him, and she pointed it at me again – blam,” he continued. “And then I f*********g shot.”
“Did you shoot her?” the officer asked.
“Yeah, I think so, man, yeah,” the injured officer said.
As they reentered the residence, Livingston begged to see his mother. An injured officer immediately pointed medical personnel in the direction of Townsend.
“Her first,” he said. “I shot her.”
Livingston continued to declare that his mother had been asleep in the home, and that officers had killed her.
“She shot me! Shut up!” one officer finally told him.
“F**k you man, you killed my mother!” Livingston said. “Why did you do that?”
Townsend was transported to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead, Tulsa World reported.
During the altercation, she shot another officer in the leg with the pellet gun. The officer who was shot in the face underwent surgery to remove the projectile, police said.
It’s not clear if she knew that the gun only shot pellets.
“It happened rather quickly, and I’m not so sure that all of the officers on the scene realized the extent of what had happened,” BPD Captain Jay Hastings told CBS News. “They didn’t know right away if they had shot her, if she was hit. He was yelling and screaming in the house, and I think their main point was to get him outside of the house and get him secured and put into a car, because it is a crime scene at that point.”
Livingston was charged with unlawful possession of a controlled drug with intent to distribute, keeping a house where controlled substances are sold, unlawful possession of surveillance equipment, possession of a listening device, and threatening to perform an act of violence.
At the jail, he vowed to kill task force officers and their children.
His bond was set at $500,000.
Due to the number of threats the BPD received following the shooting, the officers’ names are being withheld, Capt. Hastings told CBS News.
The officer who shot Townsend was placed on administrative leave pending an investigation by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, he said.
You can watch footage from the officer’s cell phone video below: