The Cincinnati Police Department held a press conference on Sunday, June 28 announcing an investigation after one of its officers mistakenly fired lethal ammunition while responding to a mental health call in the West End on Saturday.
At approximately 4:13 p.m. on Saturday, CPD received and responded to a call from a woman who expressed concern that her 23-year-old son was threatening suicide. According to Police Chief Eliot Isaac, when CPD officers arrived on the scene, they were met with a man wielding a steak knife. Police bodycam footage shows officers issuing multiple commands to drop the knife, all of which went unanswered.
In an attempt to disarm the man, CPD officer Sgt. Daniel Carder fired four beanbag shotgun rounds.
As the situation escalated, officers also used their tasers and a chemical irritant to try to disarm the man.
When this did not work, according to Isaac, Carder went to reload his beanbag weapon but instead “inadvertently grabs 12-gauge shotgun slugs.”
Isaac said Carder fired his weapon, missed the man and promptly realized his mistake based off the sound of the shot. Bodycam footage shows Carder immediately disengaging his weapon. According to Isaac, the beanbag rounds look “very different” from lethal rounds.
“Our beanbag slugs are translucent,” he said in Sunday’s press conference. “You can almost see through them. It’s very evident. The other shotgun rounds are either red or gray in color.”
Isaac stressed that Carder had access to the beanbag rounds and shotgun rounds due to his position as a shift supervisor and that the average officer would not have the same access.
Isaac said the incident is currently being investigated by CPD and the Citizen Complaint Authority, where they will review bodycam footage from multiple officers on the scene to determine where Carder’s attention was when he reached for the rounds. The Hamilton County Prosecutor’s office will also investigate the incident.
“I think we have a situation of inattention on the part of Sgt. Carder in this reload. Something that we will certainly be looking at,” Isaac said.
Isaac said officers are required to go through approximately a minimum of 40 hours of mental health training in addition to CPD’s close collaboration with the Mobile Crisis Team, which was also called to the scene. A medical doctor from the SWAT team was also on the scene.
“We did have crisis intervention help and an MD on scene here,” Isaac said. “However, we are still dealing with an individual armed with a knife. I think other than what happened here with Sgt. Carder, I think our officers showed amazing patience.”
According to Isaac and officer bodycam footage, CPD officers made several attempts to disarm the man. The standoff lasted more than four hours before SWAT was called in to assist. At around 9:23 p.m., the man was disarmed and taken to University Hospital for treatment and evaluation.
“We will always look at every incident to learn from and to do things better,” Isaac said. “In the interest of transparency, there clearly was a mistake made here.”
This article appears in The Summer Guide.