WATCH FULL PRESS CONFERENCE: Crash Followed By Officer-Involved Shooting in Fargo

FARGO, ND (trfnews.i234.me) Watch the full news conference regarding a serious injury crash, followed by an officer involved shooting in Fargo late Tuesday afternoon.
all right good evening first of all i’d like to thank all of you for being here today um just to cover uh the incident that uh happened here in fargo today i’m captain brian nieland i’m the southeast regional commander with the north dakota highway patrol joining me today is chief dave zabalski with the fargo police department this incident involved both of our agencies with a couple different crime scenes so that’s why we’re both here today we’re here tonight to provide some information about an officer-involved shooting that occurred on i-29 in fargo uh about 5 13 p.m this evening it occurred on the northbound i-29 to eastbound i 94 off-ramp is the location of the of the officer-involved shooting uh to kind of back up there to haul this all started at approximately 4 50 p.m the north dakota high patrol received a report of a hit-and-run injury crash that occurred on i-29 at mile marker 64 and the southbound roadway that crash involved a blue chevy silverado pickup and a motorcycle the rider on that motorcycle suffered life-threatening injuries in that crash and the chevy silverado fled that crash scene southbound on i-29 at approximately 5 10 p.m is when the north dakota high patrol was made aware of shots fired call in the general area of essentia hospital in south fargo troopers were responding to that incident when we learned that there was a blue chevy silverado pickup that was fleeing from that shots fired called incident one of our troopers was on 32nd avenue observed the chevy silverado traveling westbound on 32nd avenue towards i-29 that trooper attempted a traffic stop of that vehicle that vehicle matched the description of the hit-and-run crash that occurred at 4 50 pm on i-29 with the description of the vehicle was identical and there was damage consistent with the crash on that chevy silverado that chevy silverado did flee that traffic stop northbound on i-29 from 32nd avenue and then exited towards eastbound i-94 as it was traveling up the off-ramp to eastbound i-94 the chevy silverado struck another vehicle crashed into another vehicle both of those vehicles left the roadway entered the gore area where they built both became disabled immediately upon uh that chevy silverado entering the gorier gorham becoming disabled there was a male that exited that vehicle and began to shoot uh started shooting rounds from a weapon i don’t have the exact type of weapon but there was a weapon used where the the male was shooting rounds off as he exited the vehicle there was a trooper that was on scene there that was a part of that pursuit and returned fire striking the male suspect two times with two rounds and the suspect did go down and then i was taken into custody by the trooper and fargo police officers that had now arrived on scene that mail was provided medical care was transported to sanford hospital in fargo by fm sanford ambulance where he’s being treated for non-life-threatening injuries he was recently released from the hospital and transported the cass county jail the officer-involved shooting today involving the north dakota state trooper is being investigated by the bureau of criminal investigation here in north dakota the standard operating procedure for our agency anytime we have a officer-involved shooting the bureau of criminal investigation is the agency that does that investigation the trooper has been placed on administrative leave which is normal business practices for any law enforcement agencies when an officer is involved in a shooting and he’ll be on administrative leave until uh that’s been reviewed by the bci and the cass county state’s attorney’s office the fargo police department is investigating the shots fired incident that occurred in the vicinity essentia hospital the end north dakota high patrol is investigating both of the crashes that occurred on i-29 the initial crash that happened at 4 50 p.m on i-29 southbound at mile marker 64 involving the chevy silverado and a motorcycle and then the last crash that occurred on the northbound i-29 to west or eastbound i-94 off-ramp that uh occurred right before the officer-involved shooting and obviously the bci is investigating the officer-involved shooting the occupants of that final crash were uninjured in that crash but again that motorcycle rider did suffer life-threatening injuries the north and southbound lanes of i-29 the off-ramps to go to eastbound i-94 are still closed the bci is still on scene processing that crime scene the north dakota transportation fargo police department and the cass county sheriff’s office have assisted with those road closures we expect those road closures to be in place for another one to two hours while that crime scene is being processed as law enforcement professionals we swear enough to serve and protect the public that we serve the north dakota patrol trains our troopers extensively for high-risk incidents both in our tactics and decision making our agency has a robust program in place to assist our troopers and their families through these difficult times and the names of those involved will be released at a later time chief sabolsky if you have any comments at all i’d turn uh over to you uh no i think other than to say that uh he uh assisted at the scene and conducting the investigation initial shots fired which was in the 3100 block of 34th avenue they can just continue to work with the highway patrol and vci in the furtherance of their investigation as well and we’d be open to any questions you might have for right now catherine can you give us any information on the trooper how long he’s been there uh that information to release when we release his name i don’t have his exact uh timeline with the agency at this point in time no uh i have a quick clarification question what time was the shot fired call was our officers were sent at 503 for the shots very call okay so the motorcyclist i’m just want to establish the timeline here so the motorcycles was at 450 going southbound a mile mark or 64. at approximately 450 is when our agency received the call okay so then that then they must have gone off 32nd avenue and gone over to the apartment complex where the shots fired call came in shortly after five that’s all part of our investigation to figure out exactly what occurred from the time that the crash initial crash happened to when the shots fired called occurred so were the shots fired from the balcony then into the parking lot or what was going on with the shots fired call um that’s still under investigation in terms of that we got calls that someone was shooting from the balcony of that building and that they were shooting in the direction of a similarly described vehicle uh that the suspect was driving you happen to know how many shots exactly we kind of gotta tip them about yeah no we don’t have that information we’re still on scene conducting that investigation okay you also say life-threatening but we also got a tip that uh the person died can you confirm that at this point in time all i can confirm is is that we know that the motorcycle rider has life-threatening injuries and if that’s what you’re asking about yeah i think the uh the suspect uh is there any background is he familiar to law enforcement do you know anything about that again that would be part of our investigation at this point in time i i can’t release any information more about the suspect this is this is probably better for chief zamolsky did the suspect live at the apartment because obviously they gained access to the building to get out onto the balcony uh we’re working on confirming that right now but we believe that to be the case and no indication why they were firing from the balcony no not at this time total number of known injuries at this time from the initial crash the motorcycle rider with those life-threatening injuries um obviously the suspect that was struck by gunfire from the north dakota state trooper had suffered injuries as well but he’s been treated and released from the hospital the officer has not seen any degrees uh the officer was uh not injured in this incident no how many shots were fired from the suspect at from the crash scene toward the officer toward the troop i’m assuming the shots were fired toward the trooper at this point i’m still under investigation the bureau of criminal investigation is the one investigating the actual shooting incident uh that happened on scene on i 29. troopers don’t have body cams but there will probably be dash cam video so our agency we have uh dash cam video so there’s a camera in our front windshield and then we wear body microphones as well so anything when we’re outside the vehicle you can hear any of the uh verbal directions or verbal exchange that is going on outside the vehicle in addition to that camera footage from the front windshield area so obviously it’s you know you know we haven’t i haven’t watched the video having a chance to watch the videos this is still under investigation the bureau of criminal investigation will receive that video will be part of their investigation suspect uh apparently any age range uh the suspect is 28 years of age as a male and uh individual is from fargo last can you say where he was shot he’s already been released again that’s part of the investigation i i don’t know where he was shot when can we expect to learn more about this incident uh in the next couple one or two days any last questions anything our troopers are still working that crash investigation so i don’t have i’ll have some more information about that later tonight i just don’t have it in front of me right now because of the other instrument that’s that’s ongoing are they don’t see it out there they’re no longer on scene but they’re working um just working on the investigation right now uh again it’ll be part of our investigation so at this point time would just be speculation any any any indication because under the influence of alcohol or drugs again i don’t i i can’t answer that question uh it’s real part be a part of our investigation any response to the fact that two officer-involved shootings happen obviously you guys are from different agencies but you guys have a response of them so close to each other obviously our our our agency and the fargo police department we work in conjunction together all the time we’re both law enforcement agencies we both have different missions that we serve different areas that we serve the public uh but we’re out there to protect and serve and in this case you know our officers were responding both the fargo police department and our agency to an individual that had harmed somebody else and was shooting rounds off in the vicinity of other people and that’s that’s a danger to the public so our officers were responding to that and unfortunately the situation involved with uh it devolved into a situation where one of our troopers had to take a lethal action against somebody luckily in this case that individual suffered not life-threatening injuries actually has been released from the hospital already but we’ve removed that danger for from the public uh taking that danger off the streets for the time being one and one other clarification so the first traffic stop on 32nd that was after the shooting correct the first interaction between the trooper and the suspect that was after the shots fired call or before the shots fired call it was after the shots fired call and the clarify where did the first crash take place it’s southbound on i-29 just right by 13th avenue here thank you thank you