The Minneapolis Police Department on Thursday, as promised by Police Chief Medaria Arradondo, released footage from body cameras worn by police officers involved in the shooting of a suspect, identified as a 23-year-old man, Dolal Idd, of Minnesota’s city of Eden Prairie, during a traffic stop on Wednesday night.
On Wednesday, Arradondo said that the felony suspect appeared to have fired first and officers returned fire, citing initial witness statements. He promised to release footage from the officers’ body cameras on Thursday, as angry demonstrators took to the streets to protest the police killing of the man, the second in less than seven months.
The released footage supports the Minneapolis Police Department’s version of what happened at the scene.
The 45-second video shows a law enforcement officer stepping out of a police vehicle with his firearm in his hands, screaming at the suspect to stop.
“Hands up! Police! Hands up!” the officer yells at Idd, who was attempting to drive away before other squad cars blocked his way.
In the video, Idd appears to have fired at least one shot from inside his car before police officers returned fire, resulting in his death.
Warning: the following video contains graphic content and language.
“From my view of the video and the preliminary information that also mentioned that a witness saw the individual fire first at the officers, my officers were reacting to that deadly threat,” Arradondo said, following the release of the video. “The investigation will uncover more details, but the question is, ‘Should the officers not react in a deadly force situation and knowing that community members’ lives were at stake as well?’ The officers are trained to protect community members’ lives and their own.”
Wednesday’s killing of Dolal Idd is not the first police-involved killing of a suspect since the killing of an unarmed African-American man, George Floyd, in May 2020 by white officers, although it did trigger months-long demonstrations across the United States protesting police brutality, racism, and social injustice in the country.
