Newly-released police body camera footage has revealed the chaotic scene last month when officers fired 30 rounds at a man who was throwing Molotov cocktails and bodily fluids at police cars in North Carolina.
Reuel Rodriguez Nunez, 37, can be seen on video tossing cups of flammable liquids at two unoccupied vehicles in the southeastern district parking lot of the Raleigh Police Department (RPD) on the afternoon of 7th May, and setting them on fire.
Nunez then threw another cup filled with bodily fluids, according to police.
In the RPD’s bodycam footage, a responding officer is heard calling for backup, and the fire department, as the cars become engulfed in smoke and flames.
“I got a subject throwing stuff at me, he set a car on fire,” the officer says over the radio, before a second car arrives. “All traffic be careful, he’s throwing gasoline.”
Four officers at the scene are heard attempting to talk to Nunez while approaching him.
One officer asks: “What’s going on man?”
The man is heard responding: “Today … is my day … to move on.”
From their vantage points, the man can be seen filling a cup with what appears to be flammable liquid, igniting it and tossing it in the officers’ direction.
“Don’t do it,” one officer shouts as the man tosses another incendiary missile, which police described as a Molotov cocktail, forcing them to pull back.
The video shows the four officers with their guns drawn and pointed at the man as one can be heard informing dispatch that he believes the suspect has a knife in his pocket.
One officer attempts to talk to Nunez as another shouts: “Don’t do it mother f*****. I’m done with you.”
The bodycams then show the officers encircling the man, while one shouts: “Go ahead, go ahead mother f*****, do it, do it, go ahead.”
The officers repeatedly tell Nunez to remove his hands from his pockets and put down the Molotov cocktail. According to a police report, officers then shot at him, firing a total of 30 rounds.
Nunez was then handcuffed and the officers performed medical treatment. He was transferred to a nearby hospital where he died from gunshot wounds.
Nunez’s brother, Jasiel Rodriguez-Nunez, told ABC 11 last month that he believed his older sibling had no intent to kill officers and that he was likely protesting his treatment when he was previously incarcerated in county jail.
“Personally, I believe that my brother was protesting. Maybe protesting things that he saw in [jail]. It was his way of protesting,” Rodriguez-Nunez told the news outlet.
He said that the family believe officers should have found a non-lethal way to end the altercation.
All four officers were placed on administrative duty while the investigation into the fatal shooting takes place. The investigation into the officer-involved shooting is being conducted by the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation which will submit its findings for review to the Wake County District Attorney.
The Independent has contacted the Raleigh Police Department for comment.
