Newly-released video shows a fight between a Kansas City police officer and a Kansas City firefighter moments before the police officer fatally shot the firefighter.
Anthony Bruno died of his injuries in the shooting outside a downtown hotel on Dec. 1.
Officer Don Hubbard told investigators that if he had not used deadly force in this case, he was afraid Bruno would have killed him.
Hubbard had been off duty on the night of the shooting, working security for the Marriott hotel. He responded to a report of a fight going on between some people and a cab driver.
According to the police report, Bruno was attacking the cab driver in a dispute over a fare, but he ran away when Hubbard arrived. Hubbard chased Bruno through alleyways and caught up with him between 12th and 13th streets and Baltimore Avenue.
The video shows Hubbard attempting to arrest Bruno, pleading with a group of bystanders who had recorded the incident on a cellphone to call for help.
Donna McGuire, The Kansas City Star:
As he lay bleeding on a downtown Kansas City street, newlywed Anthony Bruno mouthed “Don’t let me die” to a bystander who had rolled him on his back to check two gunshot wounds.
On the pavement nearby, Police Officer Donald Hubbard felt himself drifting in and out consciousness. Blood dripped from his broken and battered face. He tried to get up but fell back.
The bystander, who happened to be a critical care nurse in a hospital trauma unit, could not find Bruno’s pulse. She asked Hubbard to apply pressure to Bruno’s wounds while she began chest compressions. Hubbard crawled to her as sirens sounded in the distance, according to documents released Tuesday by police.
Soon, an arriving police officer asked what direction the gunman had fled.
Hubbard looked up.
“I shot him,” he said.
