In dozens of five- to thirty-second videos, Rick Iwanski’s doorbell camera captured the moments surrounding the fatal shooting of his granddaughter last week by a Fayetteville police officer.
Iwanski’s granddaughter, Jada Johnson, 22, was murdered at Iwanski’s Colgate Drive home on July 1. He and his wife, Maria Iwanski, say Johnson was going through a mental health crisis and never posed a threat to officers after she pulled out a gun and threatened to kill herself. Johnson had asked her grandmother to call 911 at 9:41 p.m. that night, fearing her abusive boyfriend and his friends were trying to break into Rick Iwanski’s home, an official said. In the week before her murder, Johnson had been hospitalized for a “mental hiatus,” her family said.
The 196 video clips Iwanski provided to The Fayetteville Observer begin with the arrival of officers at Iwanski’s single-family home in a quiet residential area between Owen and Village Drives. The clips were captured by a Blink doorbell camera, a second camera pointing to the driveway, a third on the side of the house, and a fourth showing the backyard.
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‘I’ll stay close’
In the very first clip, three officers approach the door and knock to announce that they are with the Fayetteville Police Department. After a delay, Rick sees Iwanski come out and talk to an officer. Soon after, Maria joins them. All three officers go in to talk to Johnson. Four minutes later a sergeant enters, his rank marked on his sleeve.
About 40 minutes after the police arrived, the sergeant and an officer are able to talk in the front yard. Johnson is captured in the footage when she opens the door to ask if they are having a private conversation.
“Yes ma’am, yes ma’am,” replied the sergeant.
In a clip about 90 seconds later, Johnson reappears and tells them to move away from the doorbell camera if the conversation is private. The sergeant and officer will be in the front yard for about 10 minutes.
At one point, the officer said to the sergeant, “I’ll stay here in case she’s not a bull ——-.”
The sergeant seems to agree, and the officer says there is a dark spot on the road, suggesting he should park his patrol car there.
Shortly after the two men enter the house, two female officers leave.
The next video captured by the doorbell camera comes about 30 minutes later.
Two firefighters can be seen in front of the door, one of whom is peering through a window next to the front door. About the same time, the driveway camera registers ambulances waiting there with stretchers. An ambulance can be seen parked in the street in front of the house.
The cameras spend at least six minutes recording the paramedics scurrying around the yard, apparently waiting for instruction until they finally leave.
‘Shots fired!’
It was after the ambulance left, Rick Iwanski said in an interview earlier this week, that his granddaughter began to believe the officers had been sent by her boyfriend to kill her.
According to the police and the Iwanskis, when the sergeant and officer returned inside, Johnson drew a pistol. Iwanski said his granddaughter pointed the gun at her head and asked officers to take her grandmother and 2-year-old daughter outside, but never pointed the gun at anyone else.
Assistant Police Chief James Nolette said at a news conference at 1 a.m. hours after the murder that appeared to have been in favor of one person from the media, that Johnson’s actions “endanger officers, her grandmother and daughter.” “. Police have sent a video with Nolette’s statements.
Twelve minutes after the paramedics have left, the doorbell camera is activated again.
A patrol car stops in front of Iwanski’s house while a male officer with his gun drawn sprints across the walkway to the house. A female cop, also with a gun drawn, comes from the side.
“Shots have been fired,” it sounds through a police radio as the male officer swings open the front storm door and yells, “Go down! Go down!”
The 10-second clip ends with what sounds like a moan from inside the house. There are no further images from the doorbell camera.
Doorbell camera made
The camera is no longer on the outside of the Iwanski’s house. He said Friday he doesn’t know what happened to it. When asked whether police seized the doorbell’s camera — which doesn’t store images but uploads them to the cloud — a spokesperson for the Fayetteville Police Department forwarded the question to the State Bureau of Investigation.
As is common in shooting cases involving law enforcement, the state agency has taken the lead in the investigation. An SBI spokesperson said Friday that the SBI “has not removed any cameras from Mr Iwanski’s home”. When asked whether the Fayetteville police confiscated a camera, the spokesperson did not immediately respond.
Twenty minutes after the shooting, an outside camera shows Rick Iwanski being handcuffed and led out the back door. Iwanski said Monday that after his granddaughter was tackled but before she was shot, he rushed to the police to stop them and was handcuffed.
Nearly three hours after police first arrived at the house, and more than an hour after her granddaughter was shot, Maria Iwanski — holding her great-granddaughter in her arms — is walked to a vehicle in the driveway by a man who appears to be a man. to be. proof technician. There she waits.
In the hours after Johnson’s shooting, cameras capture footage of officers taking photos and talking to the Iwanskis.
Just over four hours after the shooting, Rick and Maria hear Iwanski talking.
At one point, Rick Iwanski stated, “He (expletive) it up to take her down”, before the clip ends.
Fayetteville’s assistant chief of police said the two officers involved have been placed on administrative leave. He said that in addition to the investigation by the SBI, the Internal Affairs Unit of the police is investigating the shooting.
The names of the agents have not been released. When asked when the names would be released, a police spokesman said on Tuesday that she was unable to answer that question.
Public security reporter Lexi Solomon can be reached at [email protected].
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This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Doorbell camera captures footage of Fayetteville woman; For after
