On a dark Salt Lake City street after a short chase, police officers approached 13-year-old Linden Cameron screaming orders.
“Get on the ground now!” one officer yelled, according to body camera footage released Monday.
Another yelled, “Pull your hands out!”
The first officer then fired nearly a dozen times at the boy, gravely injuring him.
“Show me your hands!” the officer continued to yell after Linden had fallen to the ground.
“I don’t feel good,” the boy said. “Tell my mom I love her.”
The body camera footage, released Monday by the police department, doesn’t illuminate why the officer felt he needed to fire at Linden, who is autistic and was having a mental health episode. And the police didn’t answer any questions during a five-minute news conference about the shooting, which has garnered national attention.
What the footage shows is a distraught mother, unsure of how to get her son to the medical facility that would be covered by their insurance and who didn’t believe her son had a weapon but wasn’t certain. It shows the perspective of the four officers who responded to the call — including a point where the officers grappled with how to deal with a mental health situation as their own policies were changing that required officers to try de-escalation first when responding to most cases.
One officer is heard on the footage asking why they should be doing an “approach” into Linden’s home for a “psych problem.”
“We could call sergeant,” she said, according to the body camera footage. “And tell him the situation. Because I’m not about to get in a shooting because he’s upset.”
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“Yeah,” another officer, who later shot Linden, replied. “Especially when he hates cops, it’s going to end in a shooting.”
Linden’s mother, Golda Barton, called 911 on Sept. 4 and asked for a crisis intervention officer to come to her home near 500 South and Navajo Street. She told dispatchers that her son was “out of control” and needed to go to a hospital for mental health treatment.
Barton told the dispatcher that Linden has led police on a chase before and had been in “a shootout” with a police agency in Nevada. She said that her son had showed an employee of hers a fake gun the previous day, and told the officers who arrived that he might have that gun with him.
She warned the dispatcher, and later told responding officers, that Linden was scared of police and that a police badge was a “trigger.”
“We need him to go to the hospital,” the mother told an officer, according to bodycam video. “I need him to go to a hospital. I can’t get him to get there on my own. And I cannot do this every night.”
A team of officers went to the home to try to get Linden, the body camera footage shows, but he ran from the house into the backyard, and then ran into the neighborhood.
The officers went after him, with two of the officers breaking through a wooden fence to try to get to the running boy. The chase was short, and the body camera shows only one officer fired his weapon.
Police have said after the shooting that they found “no indication” the boy had a weapon on him.
According to a GoFundMe page, Linden was hit in his shoulder, both ankles, intestines and bladder.
“It’s horrible,” Wesley Barton, Linden’s 17-year-old brother, said of the video footage. “To see your little brother bleeding out, saying his last words. It plays in my head over and over.”
The brother said Linden ran from the police officers because he was scared. He said that after police yelled for Linden to show his hands, they didn’t give him time to respond before bullets started flying.
Barton said his brother is still hospitalized and will be for a while. He recently was able to transfer himself from a hospital bed to a wheelchair, Barton said, but still has trouble speaking because it’s painful. Linden has lost feeling in his arm, and Barton said it’s unlikely he’ll be able to walk normally again.
“Get on the ground now!” one officer yelled, according to body camera footage released Monday.
Another yelled, “Pull your hands out!”
The first officer then fired nearly a dozen times at the boy, gravely injuring him.
“Show me your hands!” the officer continued to yell after Linden had fallen to the ground.
“I don’t feel good,” the boy said. “Tell my mom I love her.”
The body camera footage, released Monday by the police department, doesn’t illuminate why the officer felt he needed to fire at Linden, who is autistic and was having a mental health episode. And the police didn’t answer any questions during a five-minute news conference about the shooting, which has garnered national attention.
What the footage shows is a distraught mother, unsure of how to get her son to the medical facility that would be covered by their insurance and who didn’t believe her son had a weapon but wasn’t certain. It shows the perspective of the four officers who responded to the call — including a point where the officers grappled with how to deal with a mental health situation as their own policies were changing that required officers to try de-escalation first when responding to most cases.
One officer is heard on the footage asking why they should be doing an “approach” into Linden’s home for a “psych problem.”
“We could call sergeant,” she said, according to the body camera footage. “And tell him the situation. Because I’m not about to get in a shooting because he’s upset.”
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“Yeah,” another officer, who later shot Linden, replied. “Especially when he hates cops, it’s going to end in a shooting.”
Linden’s mother, Golda Barton, called 911 on Sept. 4 and asked for a crisis intervention officer to come to her home near 500 South and Navajo Street. She told dispatchers that her son was “out of control” and needed to go to a hospital for mental health treatment.
Barton told the dispatcher that Linden has led police on a chase before and had been in “a shootout” with a police agency in Nevada. She said that her son had showed an employee of hers a fake gun the previous day, and told the officers who arrived that he might have that gun with him.
She warned the dispatcher, and later told responding officers, that Linden was scared of police and that a police badge was a “trigger.”
“We need him to go to the hospital,” the mother told an officer, according to bodycam video. “I need him to go to a hospital. I can’t get him to get there on my own. And I cannot do this every night.”
A team of officers went to the home to try to get Linden, the body camera footage shows, but he ran from the house into the backyard, and then ran into the neighborhood.
The officers went after him, with two of the officers breaking through a wooden fence to try to get to the running boy. The chase was short, and the body camera shows only one officer fired his weapon.
Police have said after the shooting that they found “no indication” the boy had a weapon on him.
According to a GoFundMe page, Linden was hit in his shoulder, both ankles, intestines and bladder.
“It’s horrible,” Wesley Barton, Linden’s 17-year-old brother, said of the video footage. “To see your little brother bleeding out, saying his last words. It plays in my head over and over.”
The brother said Linden ran from the police officers because he was scared. He said that after police yelled for Linden to show his hands, they didn’t give him time to respond before bullets started flying.
Barton said his brother is still hospitalized and will be for a while. He recently was able to transfer himself from a hospital bed to a wheelchair, Barton said, but still has trouble speaking because it’s painful. Linden has lost feeling in his arm, and Barton said it’s unlikely he’ll be able to walk normally again.
