Monday, January 29th 2018, 6:25 pm
Video of a Bartlesville police shooting shows just how quickly serving a search warrant turned deadly.
The video was recorded by an officer with a cell phone in his pocket - Bartlesville officers don't have body cams.
Six Bartlesville police officers drove to a house on South Maple Street to serve a warrant. They were looking for Mike Livingston.
But, almost as soon as they broke through the door to get in, one officer was shot in the leg and another in the face with a BB gun.
Officers say 72-year-old Geraldine Townsend fired at them at least twice.
1/18/2018 Related Story: Bartlesville Woman, 72, Dies After Police Say She Wounded Two Officers
She was killed with a single shot from an officer who was hit in the upper lip with a BB.
“The video is hit or miss. It's kind of dark, but there's good audio,” Captain Jay Hastings with Bartlesville Police said.
Bartlesville Police said the video is clear enough to show just how quickly officers have to make life or death decisions, and, in this case, make them in a dark hallway.
“Once they get into the house and order the suspect down, the other two officers go into the hallway and they're confronted with a gun. It all happens in a matter of seconds,” Hastings said.
The suspect begs officers to let him see his dying mother, but he was taken to jail, where he remains.
The officer who was shot wasn't seriously hurt and he remains on leave while the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation looks into the shooting.
The district attorney will decide whether the shooting was justified.
January 29th, 2018
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