The Clark County Sheriff’s Office (Ohio) released body camera footage showing the moment a deputy shot a local news photographer without any warning after mistaking his camera and tripod for a gun.
In the grainy night-time video, Deputy Jake Shaw is sitting in his cruiser waiting for information on a vehicle he pulled over in New Carlisle on Monday night, then opens his cruiser door and fires two shots in the direction of a pickup truck across the street.
The victim of the shooting, New Carlisle News staffer Andy Grimm, can be heard in the recording screaming, ‘you shot me,’ then wailing and whimpering in pain, and repeatedly begging the deputy, whom he knew by name, to call his wife.
Shaw realizes his mistake immediately as he rushes to Grimm’s aid. He calls in the shooting on his radio and summons a medic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ltt2Yz2dks
‘Andy, I’m sorry, brother,’ Shaw tells Grimm, whom he knew. ‘Listen, dude, you pulled that out like a gun out of the back of the Jeep.’
‘I thought it was a freaking gun, dude,’ Shaw says a minute later.
Shaw continuously reassures Grimm he is going to be OK, tells him, ‘I love you, Andy… I’m sorry, brother.’
Grimm is heard trying to explain that he waved at Shaw and flashed his car lights, but he also takes the blame for what happened and tries to protect Shaw.
‘It’s my fault,’ he says in the video. ‘I’m on body camera, I’ll say it right now. I thought you saw me wave. I flashed my lights. You weren’t looking. It’s my fault. It’s my fault.’
Grimm later tells the deputy, ‘I don’t want you to lose your job for this.’
As Shaw reports over the radio that he fired two shots, Grimm says with a laugh: ‘Thank God you missed one.’
Later, Shaw is heard crying and praying that Grimm will be all right.
‘I thought it was a f***ing gun, man,’ he tells himself.
The sheriff’s office said Tuesday that it had placed Shaw on administrative leave and that he will attend a ‘critical incident debriefing.’
‘Our hearts and prayers are with Mr. Grimm as he recovers and with Deputy Jake Shaw and we ask the community to keep both of them in your hearts and prayers as well,’ Maj. Andy Reynolds of the sheriff’s office said in a statement.
The 25-year-old Shaw joined the department in 2012 and became a full-time deputy in 2015, according to his personnel file. He worked in the jail before going on the road.
The case has been turned over to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation. At the request of the Clark County prosecutor’s office, prosecutors from the Attorney General’s office will handle the case.