Police on Thursday released body camera video from a shootout with a 15-year-old boy suspected of fatally shooting five people and wounding two more in an East Raleigh neighborhood.
Officers spent several hours searching for the armed suspect, later identified as Austin Thompson, after the rampage seven weeks ago. The teen was ultimately located in a wooded area behind a residential property near the Neuse River Greenway, the walking path where he is alleged to have killed two of the victims.
The newly released video shows officers surrounding one of two sheds behind the property. Multiple gunshots ring out from the building, and officers return fire.
Raleigh Police Chief Estella Patterson petitioned Wake County Superior Court on Oct. 24 to release the images citing transparency grounds. Following a Nov. 9 hearing, the court authorized the release of three officers' body camera recordings from Oct. 13 and a compilation video with captions.
Among them was Officer Casey Clark, whose body camera video shows him being shot in the right knee as police surround the shed, and then being dragged to safety behind another building. An officer applies a tourniquet, while another calls Emergency Medical Services.
Police surrounded the shed for several hours due to concerns, based on a 911 call, that the suspect might be in possession of multiple firearms and possibly hand grenades. After about three hours, officers approached the building and found the suspect lying on the ground in critical condition, the video description states.
He has since been released from the hospital and moved to a juvenile detention facility.
Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman declined to comment Thursday about the suspect’s legal case, saying the matter remains in the juvenile court system. Freeman has said she will seek to charge the suspect as an adult.
