Body camera footage released of police encounter with accused Raleigh mass shooter

WSOCTV.com News Staff
·2 min read
10

Body camera footage has been released by the Raleigh Police Department after a mass shooting in mid-October that left five people dead.

Police said the suspect — identified by his parents as 15-year-old Austin Thompson — was captured more than four hours after the shootings began on Oct. 13 in the Hedingham neighborhood of Raleigh. Witnesses described a shooter wearing camouflage and firing a shotgun in the attacks in the subdivision and on a nearby walking trail.

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New footage was released Thursday but it appears to have been uploaded to Raleigh Police Department’s YouTube page several weeks ago. It shows an interaction with several Raleigh Police Department officers as they found the suspect in an outbuilding among the woods.

The video shows a shootout between officers and the suspect. At one point, a Raleigh police officer was shot in the knee, and other officers had to drag him to safety. According to WRAL, the officer was treated and released from the hospital.

See the video below. Warning, viewer discretion is advised for explicit language.

Officers found the suspect in the outbuildings at about 6:42 p.m. Hours later, at about 9:30 p.m., the suspect was found lying on the ground with a gunshot wound, and he was taken to the hospital in critical condition.

The suspect had a handgun, shotgun, large hunting knife, and several types of ammunition, a police report said.

Thompson’s parents released a statement saying they are “overcome with grief” and saw no warning signs that “Austin was capable of doing anything like this.”

Police also detailed the believed order in which the victims were wounded. The suspect’s brother was shot and stabbed first, police said, followed by Marcille Gardner, Nicole Connors and her dog, Officer Gabriel Torres, Mary Marshall, Susan Karnatz, and Officer Casey Clark.

Five people were killed, including an off-duty officer, and two more people were injured in a shooting rampage in Raleigh Thursday, Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin confirmed.
Five people were killed, including an off-duty officer, and two more people were injured in a shooting rampage in Raleigh Thursday, Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin confirmed.

Police are still investigating the shooting as Thompson recovers in the hospital.

“The collective motive for these attacks is still unknown,” Raleigh Police Chief Estella Patterson said in a report. “Based on information currently available, there does not appear to be any connection between the victims that were shot by the suspect prior to his encounter with the police other than they lived in the same neighborhood.”

(WATCH BELOW: What we know about the Raleigh shooting victims)