Body Camera Captures Muskogee Officer In Action At House Fire

Dramatic video from a body camera worn by a Muskogee Police Officer shows a distraught man screaming as a home burned nearby.

Muskogee Police released the video Monday. An officer wearing a camera happened to be driving by and saw a house on fire.

He stopped to help and saw the injured man just a few feet from the burning home. Muskogee Police say the unusual fire scene captured by the body camera will help officers in the future.

The man was lying on the ground face down when the officer got there. He grabbed him and pulled him to safety, all of this captured on his body cam.

Body cam video shows Muskogee Police Officer Jody Standridge getting out of his patrol car and running up to the burning home on East Side Boulevard. He quickly spotted a man in serious danger, just feet from the fire.

"At some point he was inside the home. He flees the house. I'm not sure exactly why he ended up where he ended up at," said Corporal Michael Mahan, Muskogee Police.

Standridge grabbed the man and dragged him to safety. The man was in obvious pain and calling a woman's name. Standridge pressed to find out if anyone was trapped inside.

Right away, the officer ran to the neighbor to see if he knew anything about the woman, but he didn't, however he did find out a vital piece of information. There were two men inside the home at the time of the fire who took off.

"I had two guys take off on me," the man said.

After a few minutes, firefighters got the flames under control and the two men who ran off as well as the woman were found a few blocks away.

"Turned out they had some warrants and that the electricity was being illegally procured from a neighbor," Mahan said.

He said the homeowner was stealing electricity from the next door neighbor's house, and even though the official cause of the fire is a faulty space heater, the illegal hook-up was a contributing factor.

Thanks to the small body camera, the rest of the department has a first-hand view of the chaos.

"It's an impartial, third witness, it's someone there literally filming everything that is taking place," Mahan said.

The body cams aren't just helpful in this case, they will be used time and time again in the future.