Today’s episode is different than the usual BCT. There will be no footage of thugs being goodified, the thug here took care of that himself. What there will be is plenty of reminders of the courage it takes to be a police officer and the kind dangers they potentially face every day. Anthony Bailey, a man who allegedly had no history of violence, apparently snapped and after killing his pregnant girlfriend, began shooting at officers, wounding two of them.
WARNING – GRAPHIC: Police release video of moment that started 14-hour standoff
HENRY COUNTY, Ga. – Henry County police have released chilling body camera footage of the moments officers entered a home on a “trouble unknown” call Thursday and the suspect began to fire at them.
The shooting set off a nearly 14-hour-long standoff that ended with police finding three people dead in a home, including a woman who was eight months pregnant and her teenage son.
Sandra White, 39, her unborn baby and her son Arkeyvion, 16, were identified as the victims.
Actually, I count four dead. The three victims and the monster that killed them.
Police said the gunman, Anthony Bailey, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Bailey was White’s boyfriend, according to family members. A GoFundMe page has been set up for the White family.
On Friday afternoon, Henry County police released a video showing the harrowing moments both officers were shot.
Police Chief Mark Amerman identified the officers as Keegan Merritt and Taylor Webb in a news conference.
Amerman said Merritt and Webb were responding to reports that family members saw a woman bleeding and unresponsive inside the home’s garage.
When they tried to go into the home, they were met with a hail of gunfire.
The door kicker went down first.
“Shots fired! Shots fired!” one officer shouts in the footage. “I’m down! I’m hit! I’m hit!”
Bailey’s voice is also heard on the video threatening the officers.
“I got a lot of shots! I got 30-round clips in here,” Bailey shots.
Webb appears to drop his camera after being shot in the torso and hip.
Merritt. shown on his own body camera shot outside the home, ducks behind a tree before being shot in the hand.
A second video shows another officer desperately kicking in the home’s garage door [to] get [Webb] out of the house. In the video, Webb manages to jump though a hole in the door and officers help him to safety.
Both officers are now recovering at Grady Memorial Hospital and are expected to be OK.
Amerman said in Friday’s news conference that both officers are recovering well.
He said both officers have been with the department for seven years and both are in their 30s.
An emotional Amerman said everyone’s goal was to save White’s son, who they believed may have still been alive during the standoff.
Amerman said that after Webb and Merritt were shot, Bailey fired hundreds of rounds at officers, but luckily, no other officers were injured.
“Obviously – (Webb and Merritt were hit). Our armored vehicles that came out there to assist us they were hit,” Amerman said. “I have personally seen the bullets. They ricocheted off the tanks. They basically did their jobs and kept the (other) officers safe.”
It’s unclear when Webb and Merritt will be released from the hospital.
So, despite the tragic beginnings, this episode ended about as well as it could have. Although it was too late to save the victims, the murderous villain did us all a favor by offing himself and the officers are expected to recover.
The Marine Corps has a commercial that states, “There are a few who move toward the sounds of chaos.” Well, here are a few more. The officer who kicked down the door in an attempt to save a dying woman, the officer who upon hearing the gunfire, jumped out of his car and sprinted to the scene nearly being hit by a round coming through the window, the officer covering them from behind the tree who was hit in the hand, and the one who kicked in the garage door to save his wounded friend.
These are brave men.
