Authorities in Atlantic County made public the footage from two body cameras showing the shooting of Timothy Deal on June 22, 2018.
On June 22, Atlantic City Police Officers responded to the 600 block of North Kentucky for a hit-and-run crash with injuries, according to previous reports. During the investigation, Deal, who was not involved in the accident, approached and allegedly stabbed one of the officers with a knife. The attack was unprovoked, according to a statement from the Prosecutor’s Office. The body camera shows Deal approach one of the officers with a knife and then swing it at him. The officer yells at Deal to drop the knife and then shoots him several times as he swings the knife. Deal stumbled backward and then fell to the ground with the knife still in his hands. The officers then tell him to drop the knife, which he does, and then roll him over and put him in handcuffs. After shooting Deal, the officer, who is not identified and whose face is blurred in the video, yells into his radio, “Shots fired, male down, officers OK. … I might be stabbed; I’m not sure.” “The death of Timothy Deal, while tragic, was in response to his unprovoked attack on a police officer with a knife,” Atlantic County Prosecutor Damon G. Tyner said in a statement. “The unfortunate circumstances, where unarmed individuals have been assaulted and in some instances killed, that have occurred throughout the United States should not be compared to this matter. Each incident has its own set of facts and must be investigated separately.”