RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — Emergency calls made by Raleigh police officers are shedding light on the intense moments as a suspect lit patrol cars on fire on Saturday.
CBS 17 obtained the emergency calls officers on the scene made to dispatchers and other emergency services as the attack happened.
“I got a 10-96 subject in a van. He’s throwing an object at a patrol car. He set a patrol car on fire,” one officer said to the radio.
That’s when officers spotted the suspect in the parking lot of the Raleigh Southeast Substation off of Rock Quarry Road.
“He’s got gasoline in a cup. Back all of the patrol cars up,” added the officer.
On Monday, there was a big, black burn mark in the parking lot marking where the suspect lit a patrol car on fire.
Two spots over, an officer’s personal vehicle is missing a tire.
The plastic fender was melted and the asphalt beneath it has buckled and burned.
“He’s also got feces and urine, that’s what he’s throwing on a patrol car,” one officer said in the audio recording.
That’s why for much of the day on Monday, the front door of the station was still blocked off by police tape and cones.
Officers were waiting for a hazmat team to sanitize and remove the materials.
In the audio, CBS 17 crews heard officers try to calm the man down.
Then, they say he threw a Molotov cocktail at them.
“Shots fired, shots fired,” an officer yelled.
Police Chief Estella Patterson said four officers fired their weapons, hitting the suspect.
As officers described multiple cars on fire, they removed the suspect from the area and tried to help him.
“We’re in the back parking lot. CPR is in progress,” said an officer.
The suspect was shot four times, hitting various parts of his right side. He later died at a local hospital.
No officers were injured.
The State Bureau of Investigation and the police department’s Internal Affairs Unit will be using both body camera video and surveillance footage to piece the events together.
Patterson said there will be a five-day investigative report released to the city manager’s office.
She added that she will be petitioning a judge to release the body camera footage to the public.
