Suicidal man is shot, wounded by Buffalo police when he was pointing a pellet rifle at his head
By: Buffalo Police on Friday afternoon released the body camera footage after an officer shot a man during the early morning hours on Sept. 23.
The video shows the moments leading up to the shooting, which happened around 4:20 a.m. on the 500 block of Tonawanda Street, near Hertel Avenue.
An officer enters the home, asks where the individual is, then heads up the stairs after being told the person who, according to police, had ingested numerous pills was in the attic. The video shows the man with a gun to his head.
In the moment, Buffalo Police commissioner Joseph Gramagalia said the officers did not know that the gun was a pellet gun. Once in the attic, officers Kareem Johnson and Tyler Baxter spot the individual and the gun and ask numerous times to drop the weapon; the individual did not do that.
Officer Johnson fired eight times, hitting the man once, striking the man once in the shoulder/neck area.
Gramaglia said he believed this was a case of suicide by police.
"These situations are very tough. They are extremely, very challenging," Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said during a Friday news conference, one hour after police released the footage.
"They are challenging for everyone involved, and challenging for the officers responding, and are confronted with that situation. We never want the situation to end like this did with someone being shot."
The 36-year-old man from Buffalo was taken by ambulance to Erie County Medical Center, where he was listed in critical but stable condition on the evening of Sept. 23, according to a City of Buffalo spokesperson the day of the incident.
The man was also in police custody, with charges pending on criminal possession of weapons, the spokesperson said.
When officers arrived, they found the man "in possession of a gun in an upstairs room, with others in the house, as officers repeatedly attempted to get him to put the weapon down," police said in a statement.
Sometime after that, a Buffalo Police officer fired his gun, wounding the man in his shoulder.
The man was found to be in possession of "numerous" firearms in the house, following an execution of a search warrant. The man was holding a pellet-long gun during his encounter with police.