The family of a man who was critically injured when he was hit by a Nevada police squad car said video of the incident shows the man did not threaten police prior to being hit by the car.
In a statement released Sunday night, Eric Peterson’s family said Peterson remains in critical condition at Mercy Medical Center in Des Moines. The statement said the family viewed a police videotape of the incident and that “Eric did not attack either officer.” Officers said they responded to a report of a man with a knife near 13th Street and M Avenue in Nevada Friday evening. The friend who was with my husband said, ‘He’s got a knife! He’s got a knife!’ By then, the guy started running down the street and that’s when we heard the sirens and the police coming,” said witness Teresa Phillips. Officers said when they got there, the man started running toward their squad cars.
“Ultimately, the suspect was hit by one of the police vehicles as the suspect was running towards the officers with the knife,” said Nevada Police Chief Mike Tupper. “The cop floored it into the parking lot and hit him,” Phillips said. Peterson was flown by air ambulance to Mercy Medical Center in Des Moines, where he remains in critical condition.
What do you make of this? Is the cop a potential murder suspect?
I’ve been watching this video several times this afternoon (Years ago I worked in the brick building seen in the video) Its in Nevada, Iowa.
I don’t think this was intentional. Perhaps the wrong place at the wrong time, but things were happening fast and the guy was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Malace I don’t see here.
Looks pretty intentional to me. There is no way the cop didn’t see him before he turned in. The cop doesn’t stay on the other side of the park lot, he lines up the guy up and plows in to him.
The cop turned the corner and may not have even seen the idiot before he hit him.
The moron had trees in the background and was in camo.
It may be a personal failure of mine but I don’t have much sympathy for crazy people, much less crazy people running around with a knife.
He ran towards the cop car, the cop car was making a turn and hit him. He should not have been in the road, much less running AT cars.
Stranger crazy guy versus stranger in cop car. Lots of unknowns. Just keep BOTH of them away from me.
I don’t really care if he did see him and I don’t care if the guy was insane he had a knife he attacked the other police car and was a danger to the public the officer did the most prudent and least dangerous thing for him self by hitting the nut.
and just think if the nutcase dies there is one less thing causing global warming
I guess it gives them something to do besides pulling me over because I have a license plate light out. I live in Nevada down the very street from this incident.
In the video he is clearly holding a knife and running at the police officers.
“He was holding a knife but not brandishing it. He did jump on the hood of the first police car and ran onto the roof and over the vehicle but his actions were not an attempt to gain entry to the vehicle. ”
Nobody should be surprised when they do stupid shit and get hurt. Cops are notorious for doing stupid shit, but, when you find yourself dealing with them, it helps to play it real low key, like dropping the knife.
Ya know, I’m waiting for the cops to get sued for returning fire. It’s just a matter of time.
I’m not buying the argument the cops were defending themselves.
Last time I checked you couldn’t stab through a car.
This is when you are supposed to pull out the taser and shoot them with that.
Mentally ill and running around the street doesn’t give anyone the excuse to jump onto a car like that, especially a cops car. He’s damn well lucky he didn’t get plugged with 20+ rounds of 9mm love.
Don’t get me wrong, maybe the guy went off his meds and just took off. I’m sorry he’s in critical condition and is someone’s son. But still, I’m sure there will be a lawsuit and all that jazz. If the cop did it on purpose shame on him but he did need to get things under control. Who knows really.
So…his Mental disorder aside, he is a public threat wielding a weapon capable of deadly force. The officer had to have been acting in a manner to protect the public. Because neither officer was in immediate danger in their police cruiser. If the suspect had a high velocity projectile weapon, ie. Gun, then there would have been an imminent threat. So if they believed at the time that the man would flee and cause harm to others, they were justified. The speed was a bit excessive…but then again hitting a pedestrian with a car above 5mph will most likely always be deemed unlawfully deadly force…if they are not a threat… There are several supreme court rulings about police using vehicles against cars and motorcycles…perhaps even a few with pedestrians… at least he went over the car… From the video it looks like the right leg would be shattered…notice the direction of the shoe flying off…it flys forward with at least the same speed as the car…instant acceleration is bad… 🙁
Let’s assume for a moment that the officer driving the car did not see the suspect as he made the turn into the parking lot.
That means the driver was not looking in the direction they were turning, and not paying sufficient attention to what was in front of the vehicle.
I’m not too concerned that a nut with a knife got run over. But what if it had been an innocent bystander standing in the same spot?
Phew. Sure glad he didn’t use his tazer.
The guy was chasing people with a knife. Run him over or shoot him. What’s the diff?
Easy way to avoid this is to not chase people, especially cops, with a knife. I hope they make him pay for any damage to the cruiser.
He NAILED that tard.
The video is proofed he’s retarded. Running AT cops with a knife. That’s the legal definition of mentally handicapped.
But, the cop is a lazy a-hole. He intentionally rammed the tard so he didn’t have to get out of his car and taze, pepper spray and cuff him.
I hope he didn’t spill his coffee.
I didn’t.
No sympathy. If he was a retard, why didn’t they just have him locked in the basement, like any other responsible rednecks?
Crazy guy attacks you with a knife. In a sane world, killing him is the approved thing to do. But in Barrack’s world, nobody is allowed to own a gun to protect themself, so the crazy guy with a gun kills you and your family. Barack is happy.
Don’t bring a knife to a car fight.
Sorry, but I don’t see any deliberate intent there. Perhaps careless driving by not looking where he was turning, but thats about it.
#18 – Digby
Paranoia.
Cops can suck but knife welding maniacs suck even more ,so I’m going with johnny On this one ftw.\
From the looks of it, the freak wasn’t going to be president or Dad of the year,good pumpkin carver at best so I’m not gonna loose any sleep over it.
I have no sympathy for either party. The man may be unstable, but he did have a weapon. I can’t tell if it was accidental, or intentional, but to be quite honest, it doesn’t matter. The problem is, we don’t know what was said on the radio, nor the full rollout of the incident.
The guy ran over the top of the car once, it looks like he was trying to do it again and didn’t realize doing so with the car in motion = faceplant. I’d say the Cop should have been paying more attention, but I have a hard time having sympathy for people who get hurt doing massively stupid shit.
Well, it certainly looks like he meant to run the guy over. He did not start to brake until he was well past the nutjob.
Of course he could have safely stopped his car, gotten out, and tried to calmly talk to the crazy guy waving the knife around. If that didn’t work, he could have locked his service revolver in his glove box so the suspect didn’t have a chance to take it away from him and then tried to wrestle the knife from the crazy guys hand.
As long as he is in compliance with his departments deadly force guidelines, he should be ok.
Don
Seems to me the car hopper is a good candidate for the Darwin Awards.
That guy should be thanking his lucky stars that the cops didn’t get out of their car because he’d be full of nice clean 9mm holes.
Tazer a crazy guy who may be hopped up on meth?
Yea, right!
These cops had to stop the guy because once this guy figured out he wasn’t going to kill a cop, well why not the little kid down the street or the family having dinner?
It looks like the nut case was trying to run over the car again. It didn’t work.
There is no good way of dealing with this situation. The safest way for the cop was to hit him with the car which may not have been on purpose because the guy was running his way and hard to see.
Since this guy was clearly a threat to anyone not in a moving car….
Depending on the knife and the guy it isn’t all that hard to ram a knife blade through a car body. Plate armor was thicker.
Who do I have to vote for to make it legal for cops to run down knife wielding mental cases?
I have to say there are alto of people in support of U.S.A becoming a Stalinist police state.
At no time before the car hit did I see a officer outside his car. So, how is a knife welding mentally off-kilter person endangering the officers snug in their moving cars?
# 5 Mitchell said, “most prudent and least dangerous thing for him self by hitting the nut.”
A more controllable and prudent way would be to shoot him, set up a sniper position, call in back-up.
You have no control of the harm done to someone by hitting them at those speeds. This is nothing short of attempted murder. Needless to say, why this is not an approved police procedure?
I think there are allot of people here who would feel safer in Russia. Go home RUSKI!!!