Bodycam video shows man charging, threatening Jacksonville officer before being killed
By: A released video of a police-involved shooting of a Jacksonville man on May 26, 2020, shows the man charged the officer and repeatedly told him "I have a gun." He also repeatedly taunted the officer, screaming at the officer, "kill me."
First Coast News has chosen not to name the deceased or the responding officer for this story.
The incident happened when a Jacksonville sheriff's officer responded to a traffic accident on J. Turner Butler Boulevard. His encounter with the driver quickly turned deadly. The video, which begins with the officer checking on the man's wellbeing and ends with his death, is only nine minutes.
The man told the officer he had fallen asleep at the wheel and crashed his car. The car is shown with severe damage in the video.
He said he was uninjured other than some chest pain, and he was exhausted from driving to Jacksonville from Savannah.
When asked if he was taking any medications, the man replied: "I do take some medications but it's just ... I just got tired. I haven't slept much lately, but I'm on my normal medications."
The officer questions the man's strange demeanor, asking him: "Are you okay? Is this your normal?"
The video shows that after a couple of minutes of talking with the officer, the man runs at him, yelling.
The officer uses a stun gun multiple times, but the man continues to get up.
He yells at the officer: "You better kill me. You better. You better."
The officer called for backup.
The officer calls dispatch again after the first time he uses the stun gun. "He just lost his mind. I mean he tried to attack me," he said.
The man then starts to yell, "I got a gun! I got a gun!"
While he was reaching into his car, the officer continues to tell him to stop what he was doing.
He didn't comply. The officer then shoots him twice.
The man appears to die quickly after that.
The footage fits with JSO's briefing on the incident on the day it happened.
Police said at the time that the officer began a conversation with the driver about how he was feeling. During the conversation, "for an unknown reason, the gentleman attacked the officer, saying he had a gun," police said.
The officer was able to disengage enough to draw his stun gun and deployed it twice, police said. The man was subdued for a short period of time but got back up and ran to his car yelling that he had a gun, police said.
That's when the officer fired two shots with his service weapon, striking Dunaway, who died at the scene.