Police say a 27-second body camera video of the killing of Dolal Bayle Idd in Minneapolis shows that Idd shot at police first as officers tried to box him in with patrol cars in a parking lot, but his family and protesters are continuing to demand answers about what happened.
Idd, a 23-year-old Black man, was shot at repeatedly while in his car in the parking lot of a gas station on Wednesday night. In Minneapolis, where George Floyd was killed by police in an incident that sparked massive protests and reignited a nationwide movement against police violence, protesters took to the streets for two nights in a row asking what led to the deadly shooting.
The short body camera video released by Minneapolis police Thursday shows officers aiming their weapons at a white car.
Officers are heard yelling, “Hands up! Hands up!” as the driver tries to maneuver the car on the snowy parking lot. Two patrol cars with lights flashing block the front of the white car, and when the driver tries to go in reverse, a third patrol car boxes the vehicle in.
“Fuck!” one of the officers is heard yelling after the driver’s-side window appears to shatter. Officers then fire multiple times into the white car.
Police said a woman was also in the car at the time, but was not injured in the shooting.
It is difficult to determine what happened based on the body camera video, but Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo said it appears to show Idd firing at officers first.
“When I view the video that everyone else is viewing, and certainly the real time slow-down version, it appears the individual inside the vehicle fires his weapon at the officers first,” he told reporters shortly after the video was released.
The body camera footage was released just 24 hours after the deadly shooting, a fairly rapid response by a city still reeling from Floyd’s killing on May 25, after a Minneapolis police officer crushed Floyd’s neck with his knee.
City officials pledged transparency in addressing Wednesday’s deadly shooting, acknowledging the lasting impact of Floyd’s death.
“We know a life has been cut short tonight and that trust between communities of color and law enforcement is fragile,” Mayor Jacob Frey said in a Facebook post. “Rebuilding that trust will depend on complete transparency.”
Chao Xiong / AP
Bayle Gelle holds a phone with a photo of his 22-year-old son, Dolal Idd.
Police said no other video will be released at the moment, and the shooting was under investigation by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.
Authorities have not said what prompted police to stop Idd, but that officers involved in search warrant and drug investigations tried to pull over the driver in the parking lot.
The Star Tribune reported that Idd was convicted in 2019 for carrying a gun in a public place, and that Idd had fired the weapon in his parent’s basement in Eden Prairie. The handgun had been reported stolen from North Dakota and Idd was prohibited from possessing a firearm.
Shortly after the shooting, Idd’s father, Bayle Adod Gelle, said deputies with the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office banged on his front door and searched his house while he and his wife had their hands tied with a cord.
He told the Sahan Journal, a non-profit newsroom reporting on immigrants and refugees in Minnesota, that deputies held the family, including three children aged 4, 7, and 9 years old, at gunpoint while they searched the home.
“I felt very scared,” he told the Sahan Journal. “I thought they were going to kill us.”
After a two-hour search, Gelle said officers took no evidence from the home, and then told him his son had been killed.
In a statement, the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Department said deputies “acted professionally and polity and followed procedure during execution of the search warrant,” which includes handcuffing adults.
The search was conducted to assist the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, Sheriff David Hutchinson said.
The deadly shooting has prompted peaceful protests in the city for two nights in a row. Another rally was expected Sunday night.
“We are angry right now,” Jaylani Hussein, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said at one of the protests. “We are frustrated right now because we said, ‘No,’ after George Floyd was killed, but it did not take that long until another body fell.”
