Watch: Intense Video Shows Cop Avoid Hail of Gunfire While Trying To Enter Home
Law enforcement can be an incredibly dangerous and even deadly profession, as seemingly routine duties and interactions with the community can instantly become fatal incidents.
Case in point is the recent shooting death of 26-year-old Sacramento police officer Tara O’Sullivan. O’Sullivan was gunned down and killed on Wednesday in what appears to have been a pre-planned ambush while responding to a domestic violence call, according to the Los Angeles Times.
“She gave her young life while protecting our community,” said Deputy Chief Dave Peletta in a news conference in the early morning hours of Thursday. “We are devastated tonight. There are no words to convey the depth of sadness we feel or how heartbroken we are for the family of our young, brave officer.”
O’Sullivan and other officers had arrived at the scene to provide watch while a woman gathered her belongings and left a home following a domestic dispute.
Unfortunately, as officers attempted to enter the home to speak with the man on the other side of that dispute, he opened fire on the officers without warning, hitting O’Sullivan in the hail of gunfire.
Body camera footage from the lead officer attempting entry was released to the public and published by USA Today.
That officer somehow managed to scramble backwards and out of the way to take cover in a nearby garage area while shots continued to ring out.
Warning: The following video contains graphic footage.
CBS News reported that the suspect, Adel Sambrano Ramos, unexpectedly opened fire right after the unidentified lead officer attempted to assure him, “Adel, police department. If you’re in here, let me know. You’re not in trouble, dude.”
O’Sullivan was right behind that officer and was reportedly hit multiple times and fell wounded in the yard.
Numerous initial attempts to rescue her were unsuccessful as the suspect continued to fire upon any officers who broke cover and moved toward her location.
It eventually took the use of an armored vehicle — which the suspect also continuously fired upon — to provide cover for O’Sullivan to be moved.
She was later placed in a patrol car to be transported to a hospital roughly 45 minutes after she’d first been shot. She was eventually pronounced dead at that hospital.
A crisis negotiator was later able to achieve Ramos’ surrender after about two hours of discussion.
Police soon discovered that he had situated four weapons in different areas of the home — two AR-15-style semi-automatic rifles, a shotgun and a handgun — to fire on officers in short bursts up to 30 separate times over a four hour period before ultimately surrendering.
It is unknown how many rounds Ramos fired, but police estimate that they fired more than 100 rounds into the home during the prolonged shootout.
Sadly, throughout that encounter, as officers worked to secure the scene and worried about their wounded colleague, they were harshly harassed and threatened by bystanders.
This incident began as little more than a routine domestic disturbance call, and should have involved little more than O’Sullivan and other officers briefly standing watch while the disputing parties went their separate ways.
Sadly, it devolved into a unexpected firefight that left one officer dead and a man charged with murder for unknown reasons.
This is the kind of danger that police officers bravely face on a daily basis across this nation, often with little or no forewarning, meaning each and every routine encounter could be their last.
This is also why so many Americans hold law enforcement officers in such high regard, as they quite literally place their lives on the line to protect and serve members of their communities.
The anti-gun left will undoubtedly attempt to use this incident to call for more and tougher gun control restrictions. But odds are, some or all of the murderer’s weapons were already deemed illegal by the state of California.
More oppressive gun control laws that only truly apply to the law-abiding would have done absolutely nothing to change how this horrible situation played out.
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