Body Camera Footage Shows Burnsville Officer-Involved Shooting
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- A grand jury has ruled that three Burnsville Police Officers were legally justified when they shot and killed a Chaska man.
Body camera video from all three officers show the incident as it unfolded in the parking lot of a McDonalds near Highway 13 in Burnsville.
Map Kong, 38, was shot by officers after refusing to put down a knife.
Since 1990, every incident In Dakota County where an officer fatally shot someone is presented to a grand jury. In this case, the grand jury found Officers Taylor Jacobs, John Mott and Maksim Yakovlev were justified in shooting a man -- a shooting that was caught on video by police body cameras.
"[There was] an individual with a large knife acting extremely erratically inside a vehicle," Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom said. "Four officers responded to the scene, all wearing body cameras."
Backstrom says officers did everything they could to de-escalate the situation. He says the officers made over 28 commands for Kong to drop the knife. With no response, they boxed in Kong's car so he couldn't drive away.
"The officers ultimately made the determination that they were going try to and Tase him with less than lethal force to gain control over the situation," Backstrom said,
Backstom says officers tried twice to taze Kong, it had no effect.
Kong can be seen swaying back and forth in the car still holding the knife, moments before he tried to make a run for it.
"They were concerned for themselves. They were concerned for the safety of people in the area," Backstrom said. "No officer wants to take someone's life, but unfortunately they were in a situation where they didn't have a lot of choices."
Backstrom says officers were concerned that Kong could have run into the restaurant or into traffic and jumped into another car to hurt someone. Burnsville Police say this is the first fatal officer involved shooting in that city in 35 years.
Watch the full body camera footage from the incident below (Warning: Disturbing Content):