Police Officer Runs Over Black Man Who Called for Help
DASHCAM VIDEO BELOW
911 Call Results in Death
(OH) – On Sunday, June 13, 42-year old Eric Cole was shot in the back of his left arm. The circumstances of the shooting are not known. Mr. Cole made a 911 call and told the dispatcher he had been shot. He also said, “I’m in the middle of the street.” The dispatch recording has not been released so we don’t know if the dispatcher told officers he was in the street. Police officers from the Springfield Police Department responded to the call. Officer Amanda Rosales was the lead officer. She ran over Mr. Cole with her police vehicle.
According to the police chief, Officer Rosales was looking for addresses and didn’t see Mr. Cole in the street. He also gave a lame excuse about the lights reflecting off of the houses making it difficult to see. Is he honestly saying that officers can’t drive safely when responding to a call because they have to look for addresses and the emergency lights are on? If that’s the case, public safety is at severe risk from police officers every time they respond to a call.
What Does the Officer’s Report Say?
According to NBC News,
Police and city officials were also criticized Wednesday because an incident report did not mention the cruiser’s running over Cole. Officials said that was because a report about the shooting was separate from a report about the on-duty vehicle accident, which is being handled by the Highway Patrol.
The failure to note that an officer ran over the shooting victim stinks of a coverup. Each police officer should have written their incident report of what they did, saw, heard, etc. What does Officer Rosales’s report say?
She was on a call and the accident was directly related to the incident. It’s not like she hit someone on the way to the crime scene. Mr. Cole was the crime scene. Noting that she ran over the victim does not stop the Ohio State Highway Patrol from investigating it as a vehicle accident. Running over Mr. Cole is pertinent to what happened and should have been noted in the officer’s report. It also should have been noted in the incident reports of the officers who saw it happen. This was a coverup. It’s police misconduct. It’s especially worrying that the police chief is acting as if the excuses are valid. They are not.
What was the Direct Cause of Death?
Did Eric Cole die from the gunshot wound or from being run over? Mr. Cole told the dispatcher he thought he was going to die, but that doesn’t mean he was. The coroner’s officer has not made a cause of death determination yet. They are waiting on the toxicology report.
They have released the injury information. “The autopsy showed Cole was shot in the back of his left arm and the bullet went ‘through the skin and soft tissue.’” That does not sound like a life-threatening injury even if it felt like one to Mr. Cole. It’s possible an artery was hit. However, the dashcam video shows blood on Mr. Cole’s shirt, but there is not a pool of blood on the ground. If an artery had been hit, there would have been more blood.
The report goes on to say,
Cole’s autopsy showed he had abrasions to his back and lower chest and lacerations on his left shoulder and back, along with internal bleeding. He also had a fracture of his sternum and multiple left ribs.
There also was blunt force trauma to his arms, knees and legs, according to the report.
Those would be the injuries from being run over by the police SUV. Those do sound life-threatening. Though it has not been officially determined, it appears that Officer Rosales killed Mr. Cole. Still, it wouldn’t surprise me if the medical examiner says it was a combination of both. They seem willing to hide the truth and that determination would help to reduce the culpability of the officer.
It all makes me wonder what we would have been told if there had not been video evidence.
Officer Amanda Rosales
“Police identified the officer who hit Cole as Officer Amanda Rosales, a two-year veteran of the department who is in her first job out of the police academy.” Using the term ‘veteran’ to describe Officer Rosales, is a joke. She’s a rookie with a poor understanding of public safety.
Officer Rosales has been placed on paid administrative leave. The accident is being investigated by multiple agencies. I do want to say that I do not believe Officer Rosales intentionally ran over Mr. Cole. It was an accident. But it was an accident due to negligence. Public safety is at extreme risk from police negligence. An officer who kills a person out of carelessness, should not be able to remain an officer.