HAVE IT YOUR WAY: Suspect Falls in Volleys of Gunfire at NC Burger King

The following video may be disturbing for some viewers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPvi5V2UZKE

North Carolina law enforcement officers fired dozens of shots—audio suggests at least 70 rounds—in a nearly minute-long deluge coming from three directions after they responded to a “man with a gun” call in the parking to of a Burger King.

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Responding officers, including a North Carolina State Highway Patrol trooper, closed off the parking lot and tried to negotiate with the man to surrender, police said. The man did not respond to the officer’s commands to put the weapon down.

Authorities said that the man pointed his shotgun at the officers and was then shot and killed. The shooting occurred just before 12:20 a.m. The man was pronounced dead at the scene.

Witnesses Juana Benick and her nephew captured cell phone video of the shooting.

Nearly 20 minutes after the man was discovered in the truck by police — as seen in video — the man opens the truck’s door and then dozens shots are heard.

Officers fired at least two dozen rounds from different angles in the initial fusillade, then there is a short pause, and they fired another volley of dozens of rounds. There is a second pause as several officers on the right side of the scene form a skirmish line and advance on the truck, which has it’s horn blaring at this point, and as they advance, they fire another ten rounds.

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The cell phone video is shot from too great a distance to show the actions of the man inside the truck which prompted the officers to fire on three separate occasions.

I’d cautiously note that the circumstances make this incident sound a lot like a “suicide by cop,” and that opening fire on the man was probably created by actions we simply cannot see from this angle and distance justifying lethal force, but the number of shots fired and the deliberate pacing of aimed shots near the end of the video still seems rather alarming.

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