SILVER SPRING, Md. -— Video launched Friday from a Maryland police officer’s physique digicam captures him warning the person to drop a knife and get down on the bottom earlier than he fatally shot the person as he charged on the officer.
Montgomery County Police Sgt. David Cohen fired the primary of at the very least 5 pictures about one minute after he exited his patrol car and confronted Finan H. Berhe, 30, in a residential parking zone on Thursday afternoon.
“Put the knife down!” Cohen screamed as Berhe ran towards him after which stopped, momentarily backing away from the officer, who was pointing a gun at him.
“Get on the bottom! I don’t need to shoot you!” Cohen shouted simply earlier than Berhe began operating on the officer once more.
Because the officer opened hearth, Berhe collapsed and dropped an object he was holding.
“Man down!” a person shouted after the capturing stopped.
Police mentioned investigators recovered a knife that Berhe was brandishing when Cohen shot him. Berhe died at a hospital, police mentioned. No officers have been injured.
Division spokesman Rick Goodale mentioned the officer is a white man. Berhe was black, based on on-line court docket information.
Cohen was the primary officer to answer a name a couple of man who threw a rock at a neighbor’s window and yelled for them to name police, based on police Chief Marcus Jones and a police division information launch.
The officer carried out first assist on the person earlier than he was taken to the hospital, based on Jones.
The chief mentioned there is also eyewitness video of the incident, however that wasn’t instantly launched.
Cohen, a 17-year veteran of the division, has been positioned on paid administrative depart, an ordinary process after a police capturing.
Police detectives’ findings will probably be submitted to the Howard County state’s lawyer’s workplace.
That workplace is also reviewing proof in one other current lethal capturing by Montgomery County police.
The police division has mentioned an officer shot and killed 21-year-old Duncan Socrates Lemp at his dwelling on March 12. The division has mentioned Lemp was armed with a rifle and ignored instructions to point out his palms, however a lawyer for his household mentioned an eyewitness mentioned Lemp was asleep in his bed room when police opened hearth from exterior his home in Potomac, Maryland.
Whereas the division launched the bodycam video from Berhe’s capturing a day after the incident, it hasn’t launched any physique digicam footage from Lemp’s capturing almost two months later. Household lawyer Rene Sandler mentioned the division hasn’t acknowledged whether or not any bodycam video of Lemp’s capturing exists.