Illinois State Police have released police video of a weekend shooting that shows a man taking an officer’s gun and shooting himself at a Charleston gas station.
The 8:19 long video shows two vantage points from Charleston police… One from a police car dash cam without audio and another from an officer’s body camera with audio.
On Saturday, Charleston police said 22-year-old Yahacov Dennis called 911 for help early Saturday morning around 1 a.m. When officers arrived at a gas station on West Lincoln Ave. near E Street, CPD said, “A rapidly evolving event took place where a CPD officer was disarmed.”
Dennis took the gun and then shot toward himself, according to the department.
Police said he was given medical help and then taken to a hospital, where he died.
Dennis was later identified as an Eastern Illinois University student.
The video shows that three Charleston police officers responded to Dennis’ call for help. When an officer’s body camera audio is activated, another officer near Dennis thanks him for calling police and said paramedics were on the way. Dennis admitted to an officer he had smoked marijuana.
At one point, an officer interacting with Dennis told him he could relax and didn’t need to have his hands behind his back.
Officers said during their questioning they were trying to get as much information as possible to paramedics. At one point during the interaction, Dennis tells an officer he thought the marijuana he smoked was laced with PCP.
Another officer asked Dennis if he could move his car for him into a parking spot to avoid blocking a gas pump.
Some of the audio is hard to understand, but officers were continuing to ask more about the marijuana he smoked. Dennis was shaking at one point while talking to officers, and one of them asked Dennis if he wanted to sit in a car to get warm.
At that point, Dennis started shaking more uncontrollably, and officers moved towards him to help stabilize him near a gas pump. Within seconds, Dennis grabbed one of the officer’s gun.
