Body Cam Footage from One Deputy in Video Released by HCSO Provides Some Insight into April’s Officer Involved Shooting
The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Department released a video detailing a harrowing crime spree that unfolded on April 18 across Eureka where the suspects, allegedly two half-brothers, Jesse and Brandon Widmark, and law enforcement engaged in a high-speed chase following an assault about 2:49 p.m. and a hit and run that left a pedestrian with major injuries at the intersection of West Washington and Summer Street about ten minutes later.
The suspects’ vehicle ended up in the yard of the corner residence. [Photo by Mark McKenna]
The vehicle the suspects crashed into ended up in the yard of a home on the Northeast Corner of Harris and Dolbeer. An occupant of the civilian vehicle was flown to an out-of-the-area hospital and the woman who is from Laos was also badly injured. [Photo by Mark McKenna]
A Sheriff’s Deputy enters the perimeter of the scene. [Photo by Mark McKenna]
Of the deputies at the scene, only one activated his body camera. The footage from his camera is shown in the video above.
The investigation into the shootout is ongoing, with authorities combing through evidence to shed light on the events that transpired.
Officers inspect the suspect vehicle where it ended up following a crash at the corner of Harris and Dolbeer. [Photo by Mark McKenna]
Press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Department:
On April 18, 2023, a deputy involved shooting occurred in the Eureka area. When we have a critical incident, we want to release as much information as possible as soon as the investigation allows. Today we are able to share with our community a critical incident video which includes an overview of the April 18th incident and corresponding video.
We previously stated that the responding deputies did not activate their body worn cameras and therefore, no video of the incident was taken. During the investigation, one body worn camera video capturing a portion of this critical incident was located. It is being shared with our community today.
No additional body worn camera video has been located.
The below linked video contains graphic images and explicit language that may be disturbing to some viewers. This video is not suitable for children. Viewer discretion advised.
WATCH VIDEO: https://youtu.be/R6ShOMmoVyE
REVIEW HCSO POLICIES: https://humboldtgov.org/DocumentCenter/View/86838/HCSO-Policy-Manual
Earlier (Please note that information in these earlier stories may be inaccurate. The recent information above should be considered the latest and most accurate information.):
- Large Number of Law Enforcement Responding to Incident in Eureka, Reports of Shots Fired
- Seven Injured, the Two Suspects Seriously; Two of the Injured Victims Are Juveniles in This Afternoon’s Wide Ranging Crime Spree
- An Eye for Detail: Photos From Yesterday’s Crime Spree in Eureka
- EPD and Sheriff’s Department Giving Press Conference on Yesterday’s Officer-Involved Shooting
- While Trying to Buy a Birthday Cake, Family Mowed Down by Suspects Fleeing Law Enforcement
- Law Enforcement Releases Their Account of Yesterday’s Crime Spree
- EPD Says Man Arrested and Booked for Involvement in the April 18th Shoot Out with Law Enforcement
- Second Suspect in Eureka Shooting Booked into Humboldt County Jail
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I love the use of the term “located” re: body camera footage. It’s not a treasure hunt, the cops just didn’t turn their cameras on.
Shootout? When one side fires 32 shots (cops) and the other side fires one shot (robbers) it’s an exchange of gunfire but not exactly a shootout. North Hollywood! Now that was a shootout!
Sitting on the body cam video for a month and a half may indicate EPD has use of force concerns.
Earlier coverage says both suspects were critically injured but doesn’t say they were shot.
Coverage of the press conference says the suspects exited their vehicle carrying fire arms, the passenger fired at least one shot, three officers returned fire and “the suspects dropped their weapons.” No mention they were shot but that’s the obvious cause of landing in the hospital in critical condition.
EPD’s apparent reluctance to acknowledge the shooting is likely a reflection of the constant second guessing that cops are subject to,
Cops nowadays are expected to always make the correct split second decision.
This so-called shootout (like virtually all other police use of force situatios$ could have been avoided if the suspects had surrendered.
HCSO were the deputies at the scene not EPD.
Thank you for the correction!
What is up with that? Thinking they could exit the vehicle with weapons drawn and escape? It’s not a video game at that point.
The cops did miss their target entirely 30 times in a row at close range after initiating a high speed pursuit past two elementary schools that were in session. A crime was not occurring at the time, and all suspects were identified, and resided nearby. I’d jail the suspects for sure, but imprisonment for the IDIOT cops who decided putting the public and so many children’s lives at risk was the right decision. That is just moronic!
And what is your magical scenario where these two where going to be stopped without anyone being injured when three people had already been injured before the police even caught up to them?
They didn’t pursue until the suspects had already assaulted one victim with a gun/guns as part of a robbery and seriously injured 2 other victims with their vehicle. There was a lot of traffic that day, they couldn’t just let their vehicle keep ramming into occupied vehicles after the two different crimes they committed that day, one with guns in broad day light.
Since no officers started their body cameras in an incident where it was obviously important, maybe they all need a sensor on their weapons holster that starts it for them when the gun is removed. After blue tooth exists.
Wondering how the innocent victims that were moderately to severely injured are doing- 5 of them? Traumatized parents and kids getting out from the school close by? The community at large wondering that these pursuits and gun play could affect them- just crossing a sidewalk or a bullet coming into their homes, which happened recently, or a car crash from a fleeing vehicle? Honestly, were those bad guys and their relatively petty crime at the mall worth the ensuing major harm done to citizens in that hot pursuit and gun play? Just one camera on with a zillion officers involved! What’s wrong with this picture?
They ran over and seriously injured two people after having assaulted someone with a gun before the police found them. So yes,that wasn’t just “petty crimes.”
The suspects had already been positively identified, were local, and were not actively committing a crime. To light them up and run them right past two elementary schools in session during pickup times is just plain stupid, well beyond stupid actually. Those officers are not adequately trained, clearly. They do not turn on their body cameras for fear of being sued. They should not only be sued but thrown in jail. Two children were hurt in this incident, and five adults due to the officers poor decision making. An additional three due to the brothers terrible decision making certainly, however these two idiots look like geniuses compared to the morons running them past school children and firing 30 odd times into the home of an innocent family. When your decision making under pressure is this poor, you have absolutely no business in emergency response, none, absolutely none.
THEY RAN OVER TWO PEOPLE before cops engaged, the same type of vehicle was id’d leaving that scene, then police engaged. Your determination to blame police for being caught up in these crimes is unreasonable. Knowing who they were did not stop them from running over pedestrians nor does knowing who they were mean they were ever going to be caught with some form of public endangerment sooner or later. Maybe of they holed up in a place where many more innocents were put a greater risk.
Could things have gone differently? Possibly. Surely it will be reviewed by the police many times to analyze and train. But making broad judgements that it was caused by police when you’re sitting at home with many reports of what happened in front of you is far different from trying to figure out on the fly with conflicting and incomplete information is infinitely harder.
The foolishness of the things you bring up is clear. They drove past a school? You expected that driving past a school should mean no more pursuit? That a person who has a child in the car, which may not have been apparent, means no pursuit? There are clear risks in pursuit and clear risks in no pursuit.
You don’t know but it is likely that if the police had stopped over safety, you would still complain about it.
My major comment on the police is that the body cams were provided at public expense and they need to turn them on. Everything else is the fault of the perps 100%. I’m sick of people feeling sorry for sociopaths.
The “relatively petty crime” at the mall was armed robbery and assault. And they were already wanted for a robbery just 4 days earlier.
The injuries to the innocent victims are tragic and I trust law enforcement will review what might have been done differently but there’ll probably always be a trade off between the risk of a pursuit vs. the continuing risk to the community of letting the bad guys make their getaway.
Getaway? Where exactly? Knew who they were and where they were going! Gas mileage on that truck is pretty poor, what do you mean by getaway?
They were trying to getaway with armed robbery, and kept ramming into innocent victims occupied vehicles, seriously injuring the victims.
>”Assault with a firearm is a very serious felony offense under California Penal Code Section 245(a)(2) PC.”
I hope they are put away for a long time. I don’t want to see a replay of them out and about.
It would be nice if there was some type of alert system letting the public know that something is happening in whatever area, but the police couldn’t just let the suspects go on seriously injuring other motorists and assaulting people.
” those bad guys ” hadn’t a care for anyone but themselves.
Same for the suspects, but I expect more from my police, and accountability should be part of the job.
“I expect more from my police”? If you have “your own police”, then tell them how to do their job!
What would you have done differently? They got out of their vehicle with shotguns and aimed one/them at the cops.
that would require some sort of mind reading instead of reaction. Which one is more common of human nature ?
.
They should be on at all times when on duty, only exception should be for breaks.
batteries don’t last that long …… for one thing
The Widfart brothers could have easily worn their own body cameras. Why didn’t they?
Same reason LEO’s dont keep theirs turned on, they dont want to record themselves commit crimes.
good thing there are dash cam recordings
Storage is cheap, why not 100% of cop’s shift video recorded and publically accessible?
Because people other than the cops are on those videos. They may not want to be identified by the public for a lot of reasons including safety.
I think at this point people realize, in an urban setting, that there is a good chance you’re on camera anytime you leave your front door.
I agree with the above comments. If police want to be transparent & accountable then body cams should be on all the time
And available to the public? But even without that, I doubt the public really wants to have constant cameras on the police. I’ve seen them warn people off when they could have arrested them. I’ve seen them help people a few times in ways that surely were not regulation and would not have been done if they knew every action was on record. People complain about the police but rarely notice the things they keep off the record to help people.
I see that point of view. I think if I was a cop I would want my camera on all the time just as much to protect myself
And yes I’ve been let go by the cops before at times I likely shouldn’t have
Isn’t the motto supposed to be “Protect and Serve”?
What does ‘serve’ mean to you? I’m OK with LE having empathy and acting human even if ‘it’s against the regs” but I also want to know it they are too jaded to be human anymore and treats Anyone as lesser in a crass way.
LEOs’ have discretion, that include choosing to give a warning rather than a citation. They can do that while being recorded.
Can you give any examples of your claims?
Yes. But first give your sources about the latitude allowed police by regulation for discretion and what happens if they don’t follow regulations and something goes wrong? For example there have been a couple of stories in the news lately about a person being stopped by police, getting off with a warning and subsequently committing murder. It showed up in the news with the implication that the police missed what they should have stopped.
So that’s a no. That’s what I thought.
You want me to give a source for what is common knowledge? Pathetic. You cant actually believe that every time some was giving a warning the LEO was breaking the law.
When a police officer encounters a minor violation or infraction, they may choose to give a verbal or written warning instead of issuing a citation or ticket. This discretionary power allows officers to use their judgment based on various factors, such as the severity of the offense, the driver’s behavior, prior record, and overall circumstances.
Warnings are typically used for less serious violations, such as a minor traffic offense or a first-time offense. The intention behind issuing a warning is to educate the individual about the infraction, provide an opportunity to correct their behavior, and avoid burdening them with fines or penalties for a minor offense.
So no definition or regulation cited on what “discretion ” is or isn’t allowed, what is covered under even your version of discretion? Despite your spnarky reply, I thought you would at least try. Like the old one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, one man’s discretion may not be be another man’s idea of discretion.
However it was never even implied that police are breaking the law when not ticketing or arrested a person when they saw a violation and chose not to act on it. You assumed that was meant. But they may be disciplined or fired because they violated their department protocols. It’s called a dereliction of duty. And it almost never ends in the police being arrested. But they may be penalized or fired. Although the news has lately reported some police officers were convicted because they failed to intervene when a fellow police officer used excessive force. So it’s possible.
I saw “discretion” had been used by police who let a guy go who hit his girl friend even though they saw him do it. I imagine that is not uncommon. And I imagine he thought he was helping. The other case I know was that a police officer refused to take a report on property damage caused by a neighbor until pressured enough by the property owner to report his failure to his superiors. His “discretion” was not all that secure after all. There certainly are some regulations on this issue. Anyway, police get attacked for going either way.
If they are in public then they have no reasonable expectation of privacy. In some case the identity of individuals can be censored prior to video being released to the public.
Hopefully you don’t really believe that only one officer’s body cam was turned on…
His was just the only video released.
now the Widmark bros. are in custody of the tax payers.
They will watch TV and eat and hang out and we will pay pay pay…
Based on the information I have seen, the use of force was justified. It is problematic that only one of four officers started their camera. In my opinion it would be good to have both vehicle and body worn cameras for all officers active at all times they are on duty (except for bathroom breaks). Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Shine a light on the actions of law enforcement and the public with whom they interact.
Too bad they didn’t kill these Skidmark guys. Massive human overpopulation and it’s inherent consumption is killing our planet. We should choose to take out the trash and I think we can start with violent assholes…
Well said!
It’s kinda of a reverse natural selection for the two delinquents. Somehow, they didn’t die in the justified rain of bullets. Police do not aim to injure. Pure luck.They should have played the lottery that day instead with that luck. They could have been millionaires.
Not sure how I feel about the delay, was the cops attention fully on the scene and pushing the button not a natural thing?
Did they just not remember? So many questions just glad the bad guys are off the streets.
The court testaments will be interesting!
April 18th was tax day, more traffic was out than normally on this day.
Did we ever figure out if this was real FBI or just a local playing dress up?
That’s fake hair…
with cops firing 32 rounds how are they still alive? Do the cops need better training?
become a cop and find out.
It’s a policy issue. Everyone on the force should know that they will lose their job if they do not consistently run a video recorder. Glad nobody got hurt, except for everyone who got hurt.
O