Ada County Sheriff's Office releases body camera, surveillance video of police shooting
By: On Wednesday, the Ada County Sheriff's Office released body camera and surveillance video detailing what led up to a Star police officer shooting and killing 38-year-old Jeremy Banach on June 15, 2022.
It took nine months for the Critical Incident Task Force, led by the Boise Police Department, to investigate the shooting and for a prosecutor in another county to review that investigation and decide whether to criminally charge any of the officers involved.
On Tuesday, the sheriff's office released a letter from the Valley County Prosecutor Brian Naugle publicly clearing officer Jason Woodcook, who shot Jeremy. Naugle also cleared the other two responding officers involved.
The sheriff's office wanted to release the video, so the public could see what responding officers saw. This is the first time the sheriff's office has released body camera footage of a police shooting publicly.
Warning: Some viewers may consider this video to be graphic. KTVB reviewed the raw footage of the shooting and can confirm there was no time edited out of the video when the screen goes black and shots are heard.
The shooting happened about 1.5 hours after Jeremy's parents, Skip and Gina Banach, called dispatch saying Jeremy was trespassing.
The couple wanted Jeremy to go because he was on drugs and refusing to leave. In a family statement, Skip and Gina said they called dispatch to try and get Jeremy court-mandated detox and rehabilitation.
KTVB reviewed the video the sheriff's office released and the police documents explaining what happened. In the video, you can see several officers in the family's backyard talking to Jeremy and trying to get him to leave.
The CITF report states Jeremy told officers he had a gun, which you cannot hear in the video. Jeremy eventually leaves the backyard and walks to the front yard.
In the video, you can hear an officer who states, "Just don't reach for your gun and you're good, man. You can go."
The video then shows an officer raise his gun while Jeremy appears to readjust his own gun. Jeremy then leaves the property. Skip said it was only after Jeremy left that police officers told him that his son had a gun.
Skip then told the officers that Jeremy could have been carrying the gun that was stolen from his house the day before.
When officers learned that Jeremy may have stolen the gun, they decided to track him down. Stealing a gun is a felony.
In the video, just before 9:30 a.m., an officer finds Jeremy walking toward the Star Mercantile with the gun under his sweatshirt. Police documents state the officer said he told Jeremy to drop the gun and that he tried to grab it out of Jeremy's hands but couldn't.
Two more officers than arrived, and the three of them follow Jeremy through the Star Mercantile's parking lot with their guns drawn and pointed at his back the whole time.
Jeremy continues to walks through the parking lot toward a neighborhood. An officer in the video yells, "Don't make bad choices. It's gonna go real bad for you. Don't go toward those houses."
"I know it's gonna go really bad," Jeremy responded.
He continues to ignore the officers' commands. In the video, Jeremy then drops his sweatshirt and points the gun toward his head. Naugle said Jeremy appeared to rotate the gun 180 degrees by turning his arm and wrist counterclockwise.
Naugle said the barrel of the gun was under Jeremy's hand and pointed either at or behind the back of the right side of his head.
"This resulted in the gun being pointed in the general direction of a house across the street and/or Deputy Turner, who was behind and to the left of Jeremy at the time," Naugle stated.
The CITF report states Woodcook fired five rounds at Jeremy, all the shots hit him, and he was killed.
KTVB watched the raw video of the shooting for more clarity about what direction Jeremy pointed his gun. However, it's hard to determine where Jeremy points the gun.
Naugle said the shooting was justified because, "Jeremy Banach's flight posed a real and immediate risk of death or serious injury to the deputies and/or members of the public."
"Had Jeremy shot himself in the head, the bullet would have likely continued traveling across the street where there was a home not 50 feet away,' Naugle said. "Not to mention Officer Turner, who was also in, or very near, Jeremy's line of fire after he rotated the pistol in his hand."