Press Conference Held in Grand Forks Addressing Officers Killed and Wounded

GRAND FORKS, ND (trfnews.i234.me) Grand Forks news conference regarding officers killed and wounded Wednesday afternoon.
Grand Forks County Sheriff Andy Schneider and Police Chief Mark Nelson talked with reporters
good evening and thank you all for being with us tonight the following is an updated account of the incident that occurred today at 2627 south 17th street this afternoon on today’s date may 27 2020 deputies of the grand forks county sheriff’s office attempted to serve an eviction related paperwork upon salama q pendleton 41 year old resident of this address in apartment number 303 during this service attempt salama pendleton initiated gunfire against deputies on scene the two deputies called for emergency assistance and officers from multiple agencies including the grand forks police department responded at this point i’m going to turn over to chief mark nelson with the grand forks police department thank you sheriff schneider the remainder of what you would have seen in the press release states that during the incident that ensued two grandparents sheriff’s office deputies two grand forks pd officers and mr pendleton and a female were all in the apartment during the course of this incident mr pendleton received gunfire injuries and was transported into being treated at altru hospital the female occupant received fatal gunfire injuries the grand forks county sheriff’s office deputy received non-threatening gunfire injuries and is in stable condition at all true unfortunately one grand forks pd officer received fatal gunfire injuries and did not survive names of the involved individuals will be released tomorrow to fully permit family notifications i would like to just close this with some thoughts i want to personify these people these people wear a badge these people protect your community these people ask for nothing in return other than an honest salary these people were parents these people are brothers sisters fathers mothers that do this nationwide i will tell you as a chief there’s a hole in my heart that could never be plugged i want you to know that not only did the ground parks police department was an officer the city of grand forks lost a community member the grant for sheriff’s office will never be the same based upon the injuries to their deputy and what he witnessed as our officer suffered his fatal injuries remember it is not how this officer died it is how this officer lived that made him a true hero i would like to close and saying please keep the officers family in your thoughts and prayers and keep all law enforcement officers families in your thoughts and prayers as they continuously and tirelessly go out and do the job right now grand forks police officers even after losing one of their own are on the street protecting the citizens of grand forks and i think that’s something that i should be grateful for and the entire citizenry should be grateful for and i also want to say it’s something that doesn’t get taken likely but tightly by the city i’d like to thank mayor brown seat administrator todd phelan for their support we’re fortunate you’re fortunate to live in a community that values their public safety personnel and the people behind the badge it’s very easy to be a number and an hr payroll it’s a different thing when you personify that person that wears a uniform and one of my officers one of my family members of this law enforcement family paid the ultimate price to keep us safe and it’s something i don’t take lightly so i thank you for your time um myself and sheriff schneider would stand for any questions that we may be able to answer at this time can you can you speak at all as to what possibly motivated this guy you know it’s unknown at this time and i guess what i want to make clear is on an incident like this since both of our agencies were involved we are not running the criminal investigation portion of this that’s the north dakota bureau of criminal investigation that are running it i do anticipate that and we’ll make sure you guys get apple notice that we’ll do another press conference tomorrow once we ensure all the proper family notifications have been made and see what else at working with the bci what we would be able to release even though it’s an act of an ongoing investigation matt how are the officers and deputies holding up tonight everyone experiences grief in their own way and i think we were on the gamut to be totally honest with you it’s some people are under the misnomer that when you go through a police academy that you come on a robot you actually come out as a human being when you come out as a human being how you experiencing this situation is going to vary from person to person i i will tell you it’s very sovereign it’s very subdued but like everything else the quiet consummate professional rises to the surface and they continue to do their job can you send that bomb squad is that the residence can you tell us what the work they’re doing um in essence when you’re executing i know part of that is just when we’re executing a search warrant and we’re unsure what if anything may be in there they have tools that we can use such as robots or other things to go in and look and ensure they can go into places we don’t have to send an officer so that’s just that’s not uncommon in a search warrant so we just are using as a precaution can you be any more specific about what happened in that apartment or that weights not at this time it’s not my investigation meal and i honestly have not even seen a written document that that talks about what’s going on so i would be purely speculation and conjecture and i’m not willing to go there at this time the female adult child i’m not going to release that at this time either matt um like i said once we um once uh we get make sure all the families have been notified that kind of information will come out at a later date at this point in time i’m not prepared released up can you say where the officers were when they were shot were they inside the apartment building apartment or outside in the parking lot once again matt i’m not going to discuss anything dealing with the actual incident in and of itself like i said i want to make it perfectly clear i’ll be totally honest with you if i want to look and say what’s the purpose of this press conference the purpose of this press conference is to honor an officer that paid the ultimate sacrifice and we’ll work through the details but the focus needs to remain on the families and the agencies and the assisting agencies of those officers that were either injured or killed doing their duty help me remember she this doesn’t happen very often so when was the last time 20 year members