Police body camera video caught the terrifying moment a man popped out of a bush and grabbed an officer’s firearm last month in Annandale, Virginia.
Fairfax County police officers responded to a call of a man threatening his wife with knives and searched the woods along Americana Drive for 26-year-old Nehemia Fuentes Banegas. One officer had a dog, one was armed with a firearm, and a third officer had a taser.
As they walked through the woods with their weapons in their hands, they listened to radio communications from a spotter in a police helicopter above.
Fuentes Banegas emerged from a bush and grabbed an officer’s gun, police said.
Officers fired three shots, police said, grazing the man’s shoulder.
A body camera worn by the officer with the taser shows the officers struggle to get Fuentes Banegas into handcuffs. He said in Spanish, ”I wish you would have hit me.”
“He hit him, actually, twice with the taser, so when you hear our suspect scream out, I believe that that was based on the impact of the electronic control weapon, aka, the taser,” Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis said. “I don’t think it was until after the fact that our suspect even realized that he suffered a graze gunshot wound.”
Police discovered afterward the suspect was not armed. He allegedly discarded two box cutters after running into the woods.
Davis praised the officers involved in the shooting and credited the training they receive for preventing Fuentes Banegas from getting control of the officer’s gun.
“American police officers on 78 occasions since the year 2000 — since the year 2000 on 78 occasions — American police officers have been disarmed by suspects and shot and killed with their own firearm,” Davis said. “I certainly know, personally know, police officers who that has happened to.”
Fuentes Banegas is being held without bond charged with attempting to disarm a police officer.
